Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show; heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is that show that features innovators and we are the only guys doing the heavy lifting to make sure these people stay in the forefront and that we don't forget about them and all this mess.

John: It's really up to do this because...

Russ: Absolutely!

John: ...mainstream media doesn't even know what the word entrepreneur means.

Russ: You're right!

John: They do know what the word big government, what that means.

Russ: Bailout.

John: But they do know what bailout is. For some reason they think a stimulus package is a stimulus package, when in fact the best stimulus package is really not to do hardly anything, except to lower the tax rates.

Russ: Alright and here's our lineup for this morning. First up, for the Aflac BusinessMakers flashback: two weeks ago I sat down with the founder and CEO of Omnovia. That would be Shaun Shadfar. This is a new company that is positioned to thrive in the down economy. They enable effective conferencing of large groups via the web. And then for our featured guest segment we're going to do a deal maker series because joining me will be Blair Garru, managing director of DFJ Mercury. He's going to do one of his snapshot real deal reviews as we visit with Nikko Roy, founder and CEO of Rutter. But first...

Russ: That's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers school of business.

John: We have all the information you need to stay abreast with current thought, current idioms and, really, the history of business. In other words, what got us here.

Russ: You bet. And if we don't teach it, you don't need it.

John: And if we don't teach it and nobody else will.

Russ: That's right. And we kick off the school of business each Saturday morning with the "Quote of the Day."

John: "Quote of the Day"

Russ: This mornings "Quote of the Day" is Gregg Easterbrook's Law of Doomsaying.

John: Law of Doomsaying

Russ: It goes like this: "Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence, but no later than 10 years away. Soon enough to terrify, but distant enough that people will forget if you're wrong."

John: So it has to be both.

Russ: It can't be sooner than five or more than ten.

John: I saw that in the George Will column.

Russ: You bet. It's a great column.

John: It's a great column.

Russ: Alright and that brings us to "This Week in Business History."

John: This week in business history, in 1431 England beings the trial of Joan of Arc.

Russ: Oh, so we're starting back in 1431.

John: That's right and she was a young girl who had some visions. One of the visions involved her conquering the hated English. She was a French patriot. The French wanted to be left alone by the English and somehow they cooked up a deal with England where England would, in fact, open the trial against Joan of Arc.

Russ: Oh my goodness.

John: So they turned them over to the enemy and it didn't turn out very well because the French were fighting the English.

Russ: It didn't turn out well for her, did it?

John: No, she was burned at the stake. Not that they burned her steak; it's not like she was in a restaurant. They burned her at the stake. Okay this week in business history, in 1630 Indians introduced Pilgrams to popcorn.

Russ: Wow! This week in 1630?!?

John: Yeah, its amazing. 1630, introduced them to popcorn. Now the double feature didn't come for another 300 years. This week in business history, in 1836 the Alamo was besieged by Santa Ana, the Mexican dictator. 3,000 Mexicans attack 182, give or take a few, at the Alamo. It lasted 13 days and the entire garrison of Texans was eventually killed; there was some Mexicans in there.

Russ: Yeah, there were.

John: Once a game.

Russ: Yes, once a game.

John: It was a big misnomer. Some of the activists out there thinks that this is the Americans against the Mexicans. To some extent it was, but the fact is that there were a lot of Mexicans that didn't like Santa Ana, either. As a matter of fact, before he marched to San Antonio he had then ruthlessly put down a rebellion because he took over as a dictator and a lot of Mexicans, let alone the Texans, wanted to go back to the early republic. Remember the Alamo!

Russ: You bet!

John: This week in business history, in 1858 Edwin Holmes installs the first electric burglar alarm.

Russ: Your kidding?!? You made that up!

John: I did not make that up.

Russ: 1858?!?

John: Yeah, that's before the Civil War. Wonder if they caught any burglars.

Russ: Yeah, I don't know.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1865 the plow is patented by John Deere in Molene, Illinois.

Russ: Well, that's interesting.

John: I think they used the plow a lot before that. It's just that he probably perfected it and...

Russ: And filled out the paperwork!

John: That's right.

Russ: There you go.

John: This week in business history, in 1878 the first telephone book was issued to 50 subscribers in New Harbor, Connecticut. The first telephone book.

Russ: Well, that was interesting.

John: I wonder how thick it was.

Russ: It couldn't have been too thick.

John: I wonder if any of those big strong guys tried to rip this phone book in half.

Russ: There couldn't have been that many people with phones.

John: Well, it says 50.

Russ: Well, that's the subscribers so I guess some people had phone numbers and they didn't subscribe.

John: Yeah, well right.

Russ: Who knows? Who knows?

John: This week in business history, in 1896 the Tootsie Roll is introduced by Leo Hirschville. I wonder who he introduced the Tootsie Roll to. A girlfriend? Hey sweetie, here's a Tootsie Roll.

Russ: Tootsie Roll, that's a 113 years ago.

John: Later on, this week in business history, in 1902 Dr. Harvey Coushing was the first U.S. brain surgeon and does his first brain operation. How would you like to be the poor schmuk getting your brain operated on. "Oh I've never done this before...in fact nobody has ever done this before."

Russ: I wonder what the outcome was.

John: Well, I think if it would have been a success we would have heard about it. This week in business history, in 1920 the first artificial rabbit was used at a dog race track in Emeryville, California.

Russ: My goodness. You don't get this kind of history lesson anywhere else. I don't think, man.

John: That's right. And in Lizard Lake, North Carolina the following year the first artificial dog was used in a rabbit race.

Russ: Lizard Lake?

John: In Lizard Lake, North Carolina, right. I made that part up. Okay. This week in business history, in 1931 Alka-Seltzer was introduced.

Russ: The Alka-Seltzer having that fizz thing. Man I wonder if it fizzed back in 1931.

John: I know. I guess they got the sensation. That's probably the first thing that ever fizzed.

Russ: That probably is.

John: Alright. This week in business history, in 1957 Buddy Holly and the Crickets record "That'll Be the Day."

[Music: "That Will Be the Day"]

Russ: Cool, cool song.

John: Very good song. Later on, in 1965, this week in business history, The Beatles begin filming the movie Help, in the Bahamas.

[Music: "Help"]

Russ: Did you see it?

John: No.

Russ: I saw it.

John: I didn't see any of the Beatles movies.

Russ: I always like the Beatles, but the movies were always pretty dumb.

John: What are you going to do? It's just inane plot lines to tie the music together.

Russ: Exactly.

John: This week in business history, in 1967 the 25th Amendment Presidential Succession declared ratified.

Russ: So you're telling me before 1967 it was like a free for all or something?

John: I don't know. I think the Vice President was always...

Russ: After him...

John: Yeah, after him.

Russ: Or her...

John: Or her, yeah. So far we haven't had to use it...

Russ: Beyond the Vice President.

John: Beyond the Vice President, right. This week in business history, in 1970 the Jackson 5 make their TV debut on American Bandstand.

[Music]

John: This week in business history, in 1974 People magazine begins selling under the newsstands.

Russ: Quite successful publication.

John: Yeah, it's still around. This week in business history -- this is probably the most spectacular, stupendous sporting event in the history of sports in my estimation -- the U.S.A. beats the Soviet Union in Olympic hockey, 4-3, en route to a gold medal. It was not the gold medal match, okay.

Russ: Even getting to that was pretty significant, right?

John: Well, no, they were in America. They knew the way to Lake Placid.

Russ: Getting to the semi-finals, you know, just being able to play the Russians.

John: Oh, right. You mean getting to getting that far in the tournament.

Russ: That's what I meant.

John: You said getting there. Some of those guys lived in New York.

Russ: But then they had to beat somebody after that.

John: They had to beat Finland. They finished off the Finnish, they finished with a 4-2 win in the gold medal.

Russ: I actually met Mike Irezione at an event one time. He sat down at the table with us. He's a great, great guy.

John: Was he giving you a pep talk?

Russ: He was speaker...

John: Nursing a hangover...

Russ: I think so. That's exactly what he was doing.

John: This week in business history, in 1991 singer James Brown is released from prison after beating his wife and here's his song "I Feel Good."

[Music: "I Feel Good"]

John: And finally, here we come. In 1993, in New York City, the World Trade Center was bombed; seven die. And, yeah, they tried to bring down the Trade Center. They thought that by putting all of those explosives...

Russ: Underneath...

John: Underneath by the foundation would work. They caught most of the guys that had anything to do with it, but unfortunately they didn't get the signal that this was a declaration of war on the United States. At they time they handled it as a police action.

Russ: I knew people who worked in the area and I think a lot of employees who worked in the area knew "Wow. This is not necessarily a safe area anymore." It's kind of like they knew they were going to come back and try this again.

John: Well, they did.

Russ: They did. And they did it successfully, unfortunately. Well, I loved your history lesson until the end then you brought in the terrorists.

John: A downer.

Russ: It really was. Okay. Good job, nevertheless.

John: I tried my best.

Russ: And that brings us to navigating business jargon. This is that part of the show where we do our best to help everybody understand the new vocabulary.

John: So you'll be with it, you'll be now, you'll be hip. You'll be in the know.

Russ: You'll know the acronyms, the techno-speak. All of that stuff. And the way that we try to help you learn it is that we come in here and John doesn't know the meaning...

John: I do not know the word.

Russ: ...and I know the meaning of the word and I say the word. And I see if he can figure it out.

John: You're sitting there on your smug lofty perch.

Russ: I like the position. You know why? I couldn't do nearly as good as you do.

John: How nice. That's a nice thing to say.

Russ: But this is going to be a little bit of a challenge. Because this morning our jargon word is really a jargon phrase and here it is: sit-down money.

John: Sit-down money. We all know what money is, its used to invest and circulate...

Russ: And to live with...

John: And to live with, but if it's just stagnate its just sitting down and that's kind of what you have with a stagnation effect in the economy.

Russ: I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Here is what it is...

John: I tried my best, which obviously wasn't good enough.

Russ: That's right. At first you're going to protest, but, you'll hear, I think you'll like it eventually because originally it was an Australian aboriginal term used to describe their unemployment benefits or dull money paid by the federal government, just like ours. It's like unemployment money is sit-down money. They don't do anything for this money. It's a lot better than that money you have to work for.

John: It's a transfer payment. They take from the people who have it to the people who don't.

Russ: You sit down and take it.

John: You have to sit there and take it.

Russ: And that brings us to dumbest moments. Do you have a business dumb moment for us?

John: Well, this, I guess you could say, is a business dumb moment because a lot of companies have interests in the country of Venezuela.

Russ: Well, okay. Kind of interesting interests as a matter of fact.

John: This dumb moment goes to Chavez. He worked very industriously to win an election and it's a term limit...

Russ: He wanted to get rid of the, right?

John: That's right. Well, they voted to get rid of him, but he can run again in 2012 and he can keep running. In other words, there no term limits

Russ: Kind of an anti-term limit.

John: I project sooner rather than later that he will be declared dictator for life, kind of like Fidel Castro. All of the elections have been rigged so it really doesn't mean anything anyway. But the dumb moment is dictators for life in Latin America do not have a long life span. They sometimes occur bodily harm or at least you know a bloodless coo that end up being exiled somewhere.

Russ: He made a mistake is what you are saying...

John: He made a mistake and I think it's a dumb moment for him to be doing this because the only way to get rid of someone like this it to wipe them out. Castro is the exception to all this.

Russ: He is.

John: But generally speaking the life of a banana republic dictator is not that long.

Russ: Alright we'll count that as a dumb moment for sure. And before we wrap up this mornings BusinessMakers school of business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's playbook.

John: He is so prompt and punctual.

Russ: He is. He's talking about Mr. Gregg Price on his piano.

John: Here he is.

Russ and John: One and a two and a ...