Russ: Good morning. This is The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And this is that show about the happening people, the innovators, the entrepreneurs.

John: And the very hard workers and the ones that create the wealth in this country for the most part, and I would say also, come up with most of the ideas that really make our lives worth living in my opinion.

Russ: Boy that's for sure, my opinion too.

John: Okay. Yeah, actually we enhance your virtual business life because we give away virtual diplomas; we have virtual cheerleaders, a virtual football team. Our whole world is virtual but the information is real world and very useful as you go through your day-to-day life tripping down the primrose path of capitalism.

Russ: There you go.

John: Okay.

Russ: Good explanation.

John: How's that?

Russ: All right, and we kick off the school of business each Saturday morning with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And we're gonna do something different now. I got a series of quotes. I took one long quote.

John: Yeah.

Russ: And cut it into pieces.

John: There you go.

Russ: This is by Adrian Rogers and this morning we share part one of that quote.

John: Okay.

Russ: "You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity."

John: That's right and that's kinda what's going on right now. You can't do the zero-sum thing, you know you gotta make sure that everybody has an opportunity to grow and prosper and you do that by enhancing the marketplace with great ideas and great products. You don't do it by taking from you and giving to me and too bad about you.

Russ: All right and that brings us to this week in business history. What happened during the second week in August in business history John?

John: Well we're starting – I would call it probably one of the longest construction projects in the history of construction projects.

Russ: Okay.

John: Because this week in business history, in 1173, construction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa begins.

Russ: Yeah.

John: It used – actually they call it the Tower of Piza until two centuries later when they found it leaning.

Russ: Okay.

John: Okay, so it took two centuries to complete this project.

Russ: So there are people that were born after it was under construction for 70 years and died before it finished.

John: Well yeah, there's probably 2 or 3 generations.

Russ: That's interesting.

John: Okay, all right. This week in business history in 1851, Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.

Russ: Okay.

John: Okay, it became the first sewing machine to work in a practical way where you know normal people –

Russ: Could use it.

John: Could use it, yeah.

Russ: Cool.

John: This week in business history in 1877, this is a year after Custer's last stand, inventor Thomas Edison makes the first ever recording and the song was Mary Had A Little Lamb.

[Music: "Marry Had A Little Lamb"]

Russ: Okay, good deal.

John: Later on in 1888 this week in business history, a woman by the name of Bertha, who's the wife of inventor Carl Benz, makes her first motor tour.

Russ: That's interesting cause Bertha Benz in the story played a role in the businessmakers before when we had Dr. John Leanhard. And what she did is that her husband Carl was so reluctant to get out on the road, he kept trying to perfect the car and she'd had enough, so she just got in it and took a cross-country drive to prove it worked. And that's what got the whole automobile thing went.

John: I hope her drive wasn't as long as this explanation we just got.

Russ: No, it was actually further.

John: Okay this week in Business history in 1902 is the birthday of Felix Wankle, inventor of the Wankle engine. Now I remember that Wankle engine. Mazda was the auto manufacturer that championed that design and all that, had like a third of the moving parts of a regular internal –

Russ: Right cause it was a...

John: A rotary engine.

Russ: Rotary, yeah.

John: Rotary engine but it never took hold. I don't know why but just didn't do it. Anyway this week in business history in 1911 the millionth patent is filed in the U.S. Patent Office by Francis Holton for a tubeless vehicle tire.

Russ: The millionth patent in 1911, that's amazing isn't it, jeez.

John: I know, I know, a million inventions. Okay this week in business history in 1911 is the birth of Crisco.

Russ: Oh my goodness.

John: It's not a person by the name of Crisco; it's that famous hydrogenated shortening that we all have. It comes in a big can as this white gooey glop and people use it to coat their pans when they're baking and –

Russ: And doesn't it coat your arteries too?

John: Well yeah, and that's – and some people will just bury their head in the can and just eat away. It's really good.

Russ: Okay.

John: All right, this week in business history in 1913, it's amazing this stuff we talk about. You know we think it's fairly new stuff.

Russ: Yeah.

John: But when we look into the history of it, it's not that new.

Russ: Yeah.

John: In the case of stainless steel, it was invented by Harry Beerly in 1913.

Russ: Wow.

John: I mean that's right around the time the Titanic sunk.

Russ: But wasn't that even before there were stains?

John: That's right, well the stains came later.

Russ: But it worked.

John: So it was easy to invent stainless steel because there weren't any stains around you know.

Russ: Okay.

John: This week in business history in 1930 Betty Boop, now this is a fictional character, a cartoon character debuts in Max Fleisher's animated cartoon called Dizzy Dishes.

Russ: Were you a Betty Boop fan?

John: No, I can't stand the sight of her to be honest with you.

Russ: Give me a margarita. How the hell did she make the history list –?

John: Oh I don't know. Talk about something we don't like. This week in business history in 1935, the world's largest ponzi scheme, I'm sorry Bernie Madoff, but you don't even hold a candle to this –

Russ: Right.

John: Because the Social Security act becomes law. Okay.

Russ: That is a ponzi scheme.

John: Well it is, yeah. There's no lockbox, there's no – people have the misconception that there's an account with your name and there's a number on it like a passbook savings account.

Russ: Right.

John: Wrong, okay we're all paying for somebody else.

Russ: But Al Gore wanted to actually put it in a lockbox didn't he?

John: No, it was a locked box, that's what he wanted to put it in, not a lockbox. Okay, moving on. In 1945 the U.S. drops a second atomic bomb called "Fat Man" on Japan and destroys most of Nagasaki, which is a medium-sized Japanese city.

Russ: Right.

John: And then one day later Japan announces willingness to surrender to the allies.

Russ: Yeah. Do you think it had anything to do with the bomb?

John: I think it had everything to do with the bomb.

Russ: I do too.

John: There's a lot of apologists out there that think we shouldn't of dropped it.

Russ: Right. We still might be fighting em if we hadn't dropped it right?

John: Well trying to take those islands. If you look at what happened on Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

Russ: Yeah.

John: And some of these other places that the marines had to take, you know foxhole by foxhole, step by step.

Russ: Lot of lives lost.

John: Lot of lives lost and actually there would of been more Japanese lives lost if we would have invaded them in the conventional way.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay but with the atom bomb, there was a tremendous loss of life that wasn't anywhere near what it would have been had we invaded the island.

Russ: Right.

John: On both sides.

Russ: War is hell.

John: War is hell. Okay this week in business history in 1950 is the birthday of Steve Wozniak, the American computer pioneer par excellence.

Russ: And former guest on the BusinessMaker show.

John: That's right, that's right. Good.

Russ: So that means he's like what, 59. He just turned 59.

John: That's right. He's gonna turn the big 6-0.

Russ: Yeah.

John: This week in business history, in 1956 Elvis Presley releases Don't Be Cruel –

[Music: "Don't Be Cruel"]

Russ: Wow, it was on the flip side of Hound Dog.

John: That's right, yeah. Okay this week in 1962, Neil Sedaka, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do is number one.

Russ: Wow, good song.

John: Good song and it's very relevant to modern day life –

Russ: Well yeah, absolutely.

John: Cause breaking up is hard to do.

Russ: Yes it is.

John: Were you a bad breaker-upper or a good breaker-upper do you think? I was a bad breaker-upper man. I just never could get it right.

Russ: I don't think there is a good way to do it.

John: I was so bad at it that I would not break up with anybody.

Russ: That's a good solution.

John: I would just hang in there. I would just hang in there till they broke up with me and then I said okay.

Russ: Good deal.

John: Okay, this week in business history 1963 the Kingsmen release Louie Louie.

[Music: "Louie Louie"]

Russ: What a hit.

John: And radio stations called it obscene music but I never did figure out why.

Russ: Well I know what the speculation was, it was kinda clever of the Kingsmen, they never tried to clear any of it up. They just let us all think it was dirty but it was muffled, it was poor quality so you couldn't really tell. But my team, we had the lyrics written down and boy, they were pretty bad.

John: Oh really? Did you make em up?

Russ: Well we just did our best at interpreting what we hear.

John: Actually if you play that song backwards it's real clean.

Russ: It's real clean, yeah. Yeah.

John: This week in business history in 1965 we have Sonny and Cher's I Got You Babe, hits number one.

[Music: "I Got You Babe"]

Russ: That was a good song.

John: That was a good song. I liked it.

Russ: Right, yeah, yeah. Okay.

John: How about the show? You ever like the show?

Russ: Well kinda, I mean it was different. It was interesting always to watch what she came out and wore. My God.

John: I know, right. This week in business history in 1968 the Republican Convention nominates Richard Nixon.

Russ: Oh yeah, okay.

John: This week in business history in 1974, talk about – I'll tell ya that scamp Richard Nixon, he's in the news again because he announces he's gonna resign at 12 PM August 8th and then the next day on the 9th he does.

Russ: He's good for his word right?

John: He's good for his word and Gerald Ford becomes the 38th president.

Russ: Okay, I remember it well.

John: Right. This week in business history in 1981 the IBM personal computers are released. I remember when that came out and the TV commercials were running. It's very fascinating stuff.

Russ: Well it was change in direction for big blue big time and sorta changed the world I think.

John: All right, this week in business history, a breakthrough in the proctology field of medicine when the space telescope Hubble photographed Uranus with rings around it. This week in business history in 2003 there's a wide scale power blackout in the northeast United States and Canada. Were UFOs involved? Was it really a power surge? Nobody knows.

Russ: I don't know about UFOs but I know that I was involved because I was in New York City that day trying to leave.

John: Well you know there's a couple of blackouts in the ‘70s and at one time – I forget which year it was but I was in New York.

Russ: That's something we have in common.

John: I know, we've both been blacked out.

Russ: Did you have –

John: I've had other blackouts in my life but –

Russ: Not in New York.

John: Not in New York.

Russ: Did you play a role in causing yours in the ‘70s?

John: Well some of the other ones maybe. I think – not the one when I was in New York City when the power went out.

Russ: All right, all right.

John: Okay this week in business history in 2008 was the Georgian invasion of South Aecidia beginning a five-day war with the Russians. That was a no-win situation.

Russ: Well, and I think that the Georgians, they did something they probably shouldn't have done I think cause it didn't work out very well.

John: Well they're right – I mean everybody does stuff they regret later.

Russ: That's true.

John: Have you ever done anything –

Russ: Standard operating procedure.

John: Have you ever done anything that you've regretted later that you –

Russ: Yes, I have.

John: I think we all have.

Russ: Yes we have.

John: But there's one thing I do not regret –

Russ: What's that?

John: And that is an expanded version of the School of Business is on the web.

Russ: That's right.

John: And for all of you out there that have a thirst for more knowledge, because we all know knowledge is good.

Russ: Yes it is.

John: We recommend that you go to the web site businessmakers.com and get the full Monty of business stuff.

Russ: Cool.

Russ: All right.

Russ: All right. All right, and that brings us to navigating business jargon. This is our vocabulary lesson where we go out there and grab new words and present em to you. We hope you enjoy it. It's kind of a public service.

John: It's not only public service but it's a test of my skill.

Russ: Yeah, absolutely.

John: Or lack of thereof.

Russ: Because the way we do it is I get to select the word and I don't even let John know.

John: And I don't know the word. That's no jive.

Russ: He doesn't.

John: Okay, all right,

Russ: And then I say the word and then he tries to guess the meaning. And if he gets it right, you know we proclaim a winner.

John: I'm a winner, if not I'm a loser.

Russ: That's right. Here is this morning's word. You ready?

John: Yeah, I'm ready to go.

Russ: Here it is advertunity.

John: Advertunity, all right advertising is when you spend money to promote a product or service or what have you.

Russ: You're right but that's not the word.

John: I know, I'm trying to –

Russ: You're just thinking out loud?

John: I'm thinking out loud.

Russ: Go ahead.

John: So advertunity is an opportunity to consider advertising, which may or not be met –

Russ: Hold your calls ladies and gentlemen; I think we've got a winner.

John: Yay.

Russ: It's an opportunity to advertise something. Now in this sort of social media world that we live in, advertunities pop up all the time.

John: Oh man I know.

Russ: You gotta jump on em or –

John: Well at FaceBook, that FaceBook is self-advertising.

Russ: Well it is.

John: It's good, it is.

Russ: All right and that brings us to dumbest moments. Do you have a dumb business moment to share with us?

John: I'll tell ya the way the Obama administration is going there is no shortage of dumb moments.

Russ: Well that's good. That's good for us.

John: All right now we all know about the cash for clunkers.

Russ: Boy do we, yeah.

John: And the transaction to trade in your car to buy a new one is not that complicated but the government made it complicated because they had to shut down the cash for clunkers program almost right after it started.

Russ: Right.

John: If they cannot manage that transaction or that transactional type of business, how are they gonna run everything else they wanna run?

Russ: Well I think it kinda demonstrates how popular it is when they give away money.

John: When they give away money and just think what that would mean if it were tax breaks. If the average American wage earner, just the wage earners who pays taxes cause they're about 40% of the wage earners don't pay federal taxes. Just think if everyone got a tax cut that equated to 4 to $5,000.00.

Russ: All right.

John: You know, why do we have to single out the automobile? Why not flat-screen TVs or anything.

Russ: Or radio commercials. Why don't they give cash for radio commercials?

John: I know; there we go. Why don't we get $4,500.00 for –?

Russ: Everybody that does a $500.00 ad on the BusinessMaker Show gets a $4,500.00 check from the government. Now that would be popular.

John: That would be, I know but it'd be detrimental and diametrically opposed to the purpose of this program.

Russ: Yeah but not to us.

John: I know. I know, but the thing is there's a Bible of the auto business, Edmunds – this is the other flaw in the ointment here, publish an analysis, this is all according to the Wall Street Journal's report the other day that in any given month there's gonna be 60 to 70,000 clunker like deals that happen with no government program at all. So the 200,000 plus deals that the government – when you look at the fact that there'd be 60 to 70,000 deals anyway, the rest is probably just pent-up demand cause people started hearing about this cash for clunkers about a month ago and they thought man, I am gonna wait till this thing gets – and then I'm gonna go.

Russ: Right.

John: So they're gonna expand the cash for clunkers program down the road, add another $2 billion to it. What it's doing, it's taking all the business over a long period of time that happens in automobile transactions, and cramming it into like a couple days.

Russ: Yeah, yeah, plus there's probably not gonna be anybody buying em after it ends.

John: Look at all the pollution these clunkers are gonna cause and someone's gonna drive them right?

Russ: No, no, no they kill em right there.

John: They kill em right there.

Russ: Yeah, which is kinda stupid too. And before we wrap up the school of business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas entrepreneur's playbook.

John: Now here's somebody who is not a clunker.

Russ: No he is not.

John: This guy is Mr. Cash and he takes care of people's cash.

Russ: You bet.

John: Make sure nothing falls through the cracks there. Okay.

Russ: Let's welcome Greg Price on the piano.

John: Hello, hello Greg good to see you again.

Russ and John: A one and a two and a –

[PKF Texas – The Entrepreneurs Playbook]

Russ: All right and that wraps up this morning's school of business. Be sure and stay tuned for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback with Esther Steinfeld's interview with Phillip Rather, Founder and CEO of HomePros.com followed by our featured guest, Christine Lambden and Casey Conner, the Founders of Consulting Stance. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.