Russ: Good morning. This is The Business Makers show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And this is that show about make-it-happen entrepreneurs.

John: That's right, and not only are they making it happen, they are saving this country right now. You know, I call them the artists and the athletes of the free enterprise system.

Russ: I know. I love that.

John: I know, it sounds great, but they are now becoming the gallant knights that are going to rescue this economy.

Russ: And here's our lineup for this morning. The Subject is clean energy. First up for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback we are going to roll back to September of last year where we had Nancy Floyd, the founder and managering director of San Francisco based venture capitalist firm Nth Power. And Nancy is a true pioneer in the clean energy movement. The for our featured guest segment we have both Susan Wood and Rob Toker of Sindicatum Carbon Capital Amercia, that is the U.S. portion of the London based company that brings together expertise in clean energy project development finance and technology. But first— That's right, it's time for The Business Makers School of Business, and this is not your business as usual school.

John: No, this is a cut above what you're finding out there, because it's free and it's good stuff. It's real world and, uh, we're just glad to be here for you.

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

Russ: And today I've selected Mr. Albert Einstein.

John: Oh, yeah?

Russ: And it's pretty cool, because it's sort of like a jab at the bean counters.

John:  All right.

Russ: "Not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

John: Yeah.

Russ: I think that's true, and I, I think it's pretty cool.

John: It is cool.

Russ: There you go. All right, and that brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this July week in business history?

John: Well, a lot of hot stuff here. We're beginning with this week in business history, 64 AD, right?

Russ: Okay, we're going back, eh?

John: Yeah, the great fire of Rome begins, according to historian Tacitus, the great fire of Rome started on the night of 18th of July. And there were a lot of shops clustered around the Circus Maximus. That's where they had the chariot races and the horse races and all that.

Russ:  Oh, yeah, yeah.

John:  Now you know what became of the Circus Maximus, don't you?

Russ:  No, they've held a Super Bowl there or something?

John:  Well, I think Super Bowl 1 was there.They built the Vatican over the Circus Maximus site. That's where the Vatican—when you go to Rome, when you go to the Vatican; right around there is where the Circus Maximus was.

Russ: Wow, you don't get this stuff at regular business school.

John: You don't get that, right, uh-hunh (affirmative).

Russ: All right.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte wins the battle of the pyramids in Egypt. It sounds like he's playing Monopoly there, and instead of Boardwalk and Park Place, back in those days, they had the pyramids. Okay, this week in business history in 1802 DuPont, a company famous for it's many contributions to science, was founded, I mean, that's amazing. And when you look at these inventions, nylon, neoprene, Freon Teflon. Where would John Gaudy be without that because he was a Teflon Don. Lucite, Lycra, Kevlar, I mean, look at the lives that are saved.

Russ: So DuPont was actually founded in 1802.

John: This week in business history in 1847, Brigham Young and his Mormon followers arrive at Salt Lake City. Now, you know, like last week we were talking about how they said polygamy was okay.

Russ: Yeah, so a lot happened in—

John: A lot of news in the Mormon church this summer. Okay, this week in business history in 1864, during the Civil War, President Lincoln asks for 500,000 volunteers for military service. Now, back in those days, they had a law or a rule where if you were drafted, if you could find someone who could take your place and pay them, then you didn't have to—

Russ: That's cool.

John: It's amazing.  Okay, this week in business history in 1921, one of America's most famous astronauts is born, John Glenn.

Russ: Oh, yeah.

John: He was born in Ohio.

Russ: He's been up a couple of times then.

John: He's been up here a couple of times. And, you know, he was a very historic figure, obviously.

Russ: Oh, yeah, keep going.

John: All right, all right, this week in business history, this is tragic because it's Adolf Hitler, and he published the book Mein Kampf in 1925, okay this week in business history.

Russ: He was pretty proud of it too.

John: Yeah, I know. He originally wanted to name it Four and a Half Years of Fighting Against Lies, stupidity, and Cowardice.

Russ: And he couldn't fit that on the cover or something?

John: So, he had a PR guy who said, "Just call it Mein Kampf or My Struggle."

Russ: Okay.

John: It's kind of like the Seinfeld episode where, uh, Jerry cons Eileen into thinking into thinking that the book War and Peace, okay, by Tolstoy, was originally going to be titled War, What Is It Good For?

Russ: Which is a famous song.

John: Well she—

Russ: It came out of Motown.

John: And she started talking it, about it throughout the show. And basically, she's an idiot, you know. This is the war, what is it good for, parallel, real life parallel.

Russ: I like how you connect Seinfeld with the main, you know—

John: Yeah, right, well, there's a lot of life lessons in Seinfeld. Okay, here we go. This week in business history in 1935, an airplane crashes in the Empire State building. Actually, it was a military aircraft.

Russ: It was just an accident, wasn't it?

John: Well, yeah, right. It was not Al-Qaeda.

Russ: Yeah.

John: this week in business history in 1940, the first successful helicopter flight. Okay.

Russ: I guess there were some unsuccessful ones before then, probably?

John: That's probably right. This week in business history in 1940, here's that Hitler guy, orders Great Britain to surrender.

Russ: Yeah, and they didn't do it, did they?

John: They did not follow the orders. Okay. This week in business history in 1941, speaking of Churchill, he launches his V for Victory campaign.

Russ: So he was out there kind of marketing the cause then, right?

John: V, he had the, he had the fingers there, the index finger and the middle finger there.

Russ: Right, right, he was the first guy that did that.

John: He was the one that gets credit for it. This week in business history in 1941, is the birthday of Martha Reeves, Detroit, Michigan singer, Martha and the Vandellas.

Russ: Oh, yeah.

John: She's had a lot of hits. Heat wave. 

[Music: "Heat wave"]

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1947—that's the year before I was born—Cat Stevens, who later changed his name to Yusuf Islam, is born.

Russ: Now, what a story that is. You know, this guy was a major star, and he kind of gave it all up for the whole Muslim religion, right?

John: And the song I really liked was Morning Has Broken.

[Music: "Morning Has Broken"]

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1955, first electric power generated from atomic energy sold commercially.

Russ: Well, in 1955 that's pretty impressive that it happened back then, but boy, when you really hear serious energy people talk today, the nuclear power of the future is the key.

John: It's tough to get these nuclear power plants online because of all the regulation, and there's been no deaths from any nuclear accidents ever in the United States.

Russ: No, and very few worldwide. Even Chernobyl, they always overestimated what happened. Only 47 people got killed there.

John: I know, that's, that's a lot. I mean, you don't want 47 people getting wiped out, but, you know, it's—

Russ: That many got killed in car wrecks yesterday in the United States, so.

John: I know, right, right. My favorite bumper sticker, by the way, is "More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than ever died in a nuclear accident in the U.S."

Russ: That's a good one.

John: That is a good one, isn't it? Okay, moving right along, this week in business history in 1960, Cuba nationalizes all U.S. owned sugar factories.

Russ: Ah, they just decided, those are ours now, right.

John: Well, that's, hey...

Russ: That's what they do down there.

John: Hey, that's what we're doing here too.

Russ: That's right.

John: Okay.

Russ: We haven't taken over sugar yet, though.

John: No, well, that's next. Give them, give them time. That's all I can say.

Russ: All right.

John: Also, this week in business history in 1960, Brenda Lee's I'm Sorry.

[Music: "I'm Sorry"]

Russ: Oh man, that was a good song, man.

John: I know, that was a good song. Okay, this week in business history in 1963, the first surfing record to go number one was Jan and Dean's Surf City.

Russ: Now, most people would probably think the Beach Boys were first, but they weren't. It was Jan and Dean. Wow, cool.

John: This week in business history in 1965, Bob Dylan released Like a Rolling Stone.

[Music: "Like a Rolling Stone"]

Russ: The classic hit. What a hit, man.

John: Yeah, it was a real classic hit. Okay, in 1966, Frank Sinatra, who was 50 years old at the time, marries 21-year-old Mia Farrow in Las Vegas.

Russ: So he was like only 29 years older than her, right?

John: Yeah. Okay, all right, this week in business history in 1967, Jimmy Hendrix quits as opening act of the Monkees tour.

Russ: I can't believe he ever signed up for the Monkees tour.

John: Hey, the Monkees were big.

Russ: Well, I know, but-

John: You know, and you know why the Monkees were big? Okay, well they had the TV show, first of all, but Neil Diamond wrote some of their songs, all right.

Russ: Well, yeah, but I just can't believe Jimmy Hendrix ever was playing with them.

John: Jimmy Hendrix was young and impressionable and wanted to, you know, get some exposure, uh, to a large crowd of people, and the Monkees were big.

Russ: Okay.

John: This week in business history in 1968, the Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California.

Russ: And that played such a huge, huge role in, in everything that happened in information technology. Man, those guys, gees. Andy Grove back in those days, it was a lot of people, Rod Canon, I know, gives him lots of credit for what happened in the PC revolution. Cool deal.

John: That's right. This week in business history in 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne, who was a passenger in Ted Kennedy's car-we referred to that, back when we were talking about nuclear power-drowns at 28 years old. They drove off a bridge, and Kennedy did not comport himself very well, because after the wreck, after he drove off the bridge, he left here there, and for many hours, he did not report the accident or anything, and he got off.

Russ: There was a little controversy and-

John: A little controversy, that had been you and I, or a normal citizen, we probably, I'd say, done a little jail time over that little episode. This week in business history in 1969, the first men on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin.

Russ: Wow, so that's actually 40 years ago this week, that happened.

John: Right. This week in business history in 1972-this is New York City, folks, not Baghdad-57 murders occur in 24 hours.

Russ: My goodness. That was before Giuliani came in and cleaned things up.

John: That's like two murders an hour.

Russ: Gol, that is just incredible. They were going to town back in those days.

John: I know, I know. This week in business history in 1980, Billy Joel's Glass Houses album tops the chart.

[Music: "You May Be Right"]

John: This week in business history in 1982, Vic Morrow, one of my favorite actors, because when I was a kid growing up, he was in the TV show Combat, about this platoon in France, fighting, fighting Germans. Well anyways, he dies while they're filming the movie Twilight Zone, because Morrow, along with, uh, their two young, uh, children, were crossing a river, a stream, in the plot because it had to do with Vietnam. And this helicopter was hovering over and some of the pyrotechnics caused the helicopter to crash right on top of them.

Russ: Yeah, I remember it.

John: This week in business history, Vanessa Williams is asked to resign as Miss America.

Russ: Oh, yeah, well.

John: They find some porno pictures.

Russ: Well, I wouldn't, they weren't really porno. She was semi-nude to nude by herself. I saw it, and she looked beautiful, and, but it was very controversial in that era. You just didn't do that.

John: Well, of course, she looked beautiful. She was Miss America.

Russ: She did.

John: This week in business history in 1992, singer Whitney Houston-and she will regret this for the rest of her life-marries Bobby Brown.

Russ: Yeah.

John: All right, this week in business history in 1994, O.J. Simpson offers $500,000 reward for evidence of his ex-wife's killer.

Russ: There's probably been no leads so far.

John: I don't think there's been a lot of leads, let's put it that way. And, of course, in pursuing those leads out on golf courses all over the United States, a couple of days later, he pleads absolutely 100% not guilty of murder.

Russ: Well, yeah, the jury agreed, apparently.

John: That's right, okay. This week in business history in 1996, the first commercial high definition television signal was broadcast, okay.

Russ: Wow.

John: Okay, June 1996. Unfortunately, there weren't any high definition TVs-

Russ: -to pick it up.

John: Okay, so what's the big deal, right? This week in business history in the year 2000, the leaders of Salt Lake City's bid to win the 2002 winter Olympics are indicted by a federal grand jury for bribery, fraud, and racketeering.

Russ: Yep.

John: Do you think that ended the shenanigans that goes on in the Olympics?

Russ: No.

John: I don't think so, right. We need more laws. We need the federal government to take over the entire Olympic movement.

Russ: The Olympics, that's a good idea.

John: This week in business history in 2002, telecom giant WorldCom files for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: And it's a bigger fraud than Enron.

Russ: Yeah, and I've often heard that the kind of fraud committed by WorldCom was sort of considered just regular, general arithmetic fraud. Whereas, the fraud committed by Enron was calculus fraud. I mean, calculus is much more complicated.

John: Calculus fraud. Well, what Telecom did, is they took expenses and-

Russ: Yeah, and depreciated them.

John: -and, depreciated, and capitalized them over five or six years. Sooner or later, even that catches up with you, obviously, right, okay. Okay, this week in business history, sad day for the sons of Saddam Hussein because Qusay Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein and Uday, both sons of Saddam Hussein, were assassinated by the members of the 101st airborne, aided by special forces.

Russ: Can you imagine growing up being Uday, and Qusay, and, and being like the son of a dictator and having anything and everything you wanted.

John: Oh, oh, yeah, well, they say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well, they're living testimony to that.

Russ: Yeah, yeah, there you go.

John: But, but I'll tell you, it all catches up with you, and it did for them.

Russ: does that wrap up our history lesson?

John: Hey man, I am winded.

Russ: Good history lesson.

John: Thank you.

Russ: And I like I always like to say, you don't get this stuff in regular business school.

John: And, and you can hear the full history lesson on our website.

Russ: That's right, so go to thebusinessmakers.com. You, you know sometimes we just can't put all these stories on the regular broadcast radio, right?

John: I know, right, right, okay.

Russ: All right, and that brings us to Navigating Business Jargon. This is our vocabulary lesson where we do everything we can to keep our listeners up-to-date on the new words that are just being created out there every day.

John: All right.

Russ: And the way we do it here, is I get to select the word.

John: That's right.

Russ: And I say the word. And then John does his best to guess the meaning.

John: Guess the meaning, yeah.

Russ: Yeah, and here's today-

John: And I really don't know the word.

Russ: No, he really doesn't, and this morning's word's a noun.

John: And that's a person, place, or thing.

Russ: Yeah, and it's "locavore".

John: Locavore.

Russ: Locavore.

John: Okay, a carnivore is a creature, an entity, probably an animal.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Okay, so what's, what's the word again?

Russ: Locavore.

John: Locavore, so it's an animal that goes crazy, goes loco.

Russ: No.

John: That's just a crazy animal.

Russ: No, let me articulate a bit more clearly, locavore, not locovore.

John: In a vida lavoca. It's a dancing. It's a Hispanic dancing animal.

Russ: No, I don't think-

John: In a, in a vida da loca.

Russ: I don't think you're going to get it.

John: All right.

Russ: A locavore is one who eats foods grown locally. You know, that's the big thing now, another thing to save the planet, quit shipping, you know, this salmon all over the planet. And remember, you used to, in the old days, when you went to Denver, you never expected to eat seafood, because it was too far away.

John: It was the only way to get Coors beer, I know that.

Russ: Yeah, you had to go there. Now you can get Coors beer anywhere.

John: It's no big deal.

Russ: And you can get seafood anywhere, because they're flying it all over the planet, but those who care, are locavores. They will only eat things that are grown close by. I'm not a locavore, but, uh, there are locavores.

John: But you, you're not, you're not a locavore, but you play one on the radio.

Russ: Yeah, that's right, that's right. All right, and that brings us to dumbest moments in business. Do we have one for our audience today?

John: Yeah, you know, when I first, when I first picked this, I thought this was dumb, but actually I think I should be on, in the Obama administration, because I think I've saved about $1.8 billion in healthcare costs-

Russ: Okay, let's hear it.

John: -just by what I've found here.

Russ: All right.

John: Okay, this is in New York City. They're having a problem with bums in New York City. There's a guy named Ricky Alardo.

Russ: Okay, Ricky Alardo.

John: And he's a homeless alcoholic. You know, he drinks cheap vodka by day, and then when he gets a little tipsy or drunk, he calls an ambulance to chauffer him to the hospital, so, where he gets a free meal and warm place to sleep at night.

Russ: Gets all cleaned up, and comfortable, and-

John: Yeah, yeah, and the thing is, is he's not paying for this.

Russ: That's right, because he doesn't have any money.

John: He doesn't have any money.

Russ: Yeah.

John: The taxpayers are...

Russ: Yeah, we're paying for him.

John: Yeah, Medicaid.

Russ: For Ricky.

John: Yeah, Medicaid pays, is paying for this.

Russ: Medicaid, oh yeah.

John: Now, he phones 911 about four or five times a week, and the annual medical bill can be as high as $300,000. Over the 13 years, this is how long he has been abusing the system, the cost of his medical treatment has been about $4 million. So, here's how we're going to save it. You figure, let's say, the top 300 cities. Okay, let's say there's at least one person. Let's say the average is one person, one person.

Russ: I think there's a few more than that.

John: Okay, with 300 times$4 million dollars is what?

Russ: Uh, $1.2 billion, probably.

John: Yeah, $1.2 billion we've saved the government if they'd just quit taking these bums.

Russ: They said no.

John: Yeah, right, look. You know, sleep it off on the street. Okay, click.

Russ: Yeah, and we don't do that, do we?

John: No we don't.

Russ: We take care of them.

John: We take care of them habitually.

Russ: Yeah, and they've figured out how to be taken care of.

John: They are taking-

Russ: Ricky has figured it out, right? We should get him on the show.

John: Uh-hunh (affirmative).

Russ: Maybe he could give us all some advice.

John: Yeah, one of the, one of the medics says, "When Ricky passes on, I'll probably go to his funeral," said one medic who works in Washington Heights. "I've seen him almost every day for the past 13 years."

Russ: All right.

John: That's pretty dumb, and that's, that's just the tip of the iceberg, folks.

Russ: All right, and before we wrap up The School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook. So let's welcome Greg Price on the piano.

[PKF Texas - The Entrepreneurs Playbook]

Russ: And that wraps up this morning's School of Business. Stay tuned in for clean energy stories. First with Nancy Floyd the founder and managing director of San Francisco based venture firm Nth Power. And then both Susan Wood and Rob Toker of Sindicatum Carbon Capital Company. And you're listening to The Business Makers show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.