Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. And this is that show that features the innovators of our capitalistic society.

John: That's right, Russ. And during this holiday weekend, I think we should all stop and give pause to these folk and many others who make the good life here we have possible.

Russ: Totally agree. Good point.

John: Mm-hmm.

Russ: And here's our lineup for this morning. And our featured guest this morning is George Foreman, former heavyweight champion of the world, gold medalist in the 1968 Olympics, and also the namesake of the George Foreman Grill. That's the lean, mean, fat-reducing grilling machine. But first... That's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business. And this is not your ordinary business-as-usual business school.

John: No, it's one where we get to really get into the reasons things happen.

Russ: Yeah, right. And the School of Business is powered by Champion Energy Services.

John: Yeah. We like those guys.

Russ: And that really sets us apart.

John: It does.

Russ: And if you're a customer of theirs, you know exactly what you're paying for your energy.

John: Yeah. What a novel idea.

Russ: You don't need a calculator, an Excel spreadsheet, or anything. You just look at the bill.

John: Or a degree in higher trigonometry.

Russ: That's right. That's right. All right.

John: All right.

Russ: And we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning with a Quote of the Day.

John: Quote of the Day.

Russ: And today, once again, I've been stuck on Warren Buffet. But, man, I like what he has to say. And you will like this one, too.

John: I like just some of the things he has to say.

Russ: Well, you'll like this one.

John: All right. Okay.

Russ: "I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of American capitalism."

John: Yeah. That's part of the equation, allowing people to keep more of their hard-earned money than the government wants.

Russ: Helps, also.

John: Help also.

Russ: That's right.

John: Yeah.

Russ: All right. That brings us to This Week in Business History. What happened during this last week of the year in business history?

John: This week in business history in 1695, what they called the tax on light and air was passed - imposed, rather, in England. In what that was was a tax on windows. And it was called the Glass Tax, but, of course, light and air is - light comes through the window and open the window and there's air. And for some perverse reason, they thought instead of having an income tax, which was roundly rejected and not wanted by the English wage earners, they decided to say, "Well, we will tax you based on the number of windows you have.

Russ: Somebody in parliament said, " I got an idea."

John: And they would change the numbers of windows over time. It was a mess.

Russ: Yeah. And that's why you still to this day when you're over there, you will you will see buildings that have the windows -

John: Have the bricked-up windows. Yeah, right. So the tax was imposed by William Pit, the Younger.

Russ: Yeah?

John: All right. This week in business history in 1849, M Jolly-Belin, or Belin, discovers dry cleaning when he accidentally upsets a lamp which had turpentine and oil in the lamp and it went on his clothing and he witness firsthand the cleaning affect.

Russ: Whoa.

John: Okay. This week in bus history - this is kind of odd - 1862, the bowling ball is invented, which - and that's not the odd part. But what about the bowling pins?

Russ: They came along later when somebody said, "Hey, we got this big ball. What could we knock down with it?"

John: I know. Well, maybe they used it - what's that came called that old people play and they roll the ball and try to knock the other one off the ring or something? Bocce or something like that?

Russ: Bocce, yeah.

John: Yeah. They play it - I used to live in Tampa. They play it down there in St. Petersburg and Sarasota.

Russ: Yeah. It's a good game for retirees.

John: Yeah. Okay. This week in business history in 1928, the first US air-conditioned office building opens in Texas, San Antonio, to be specific.

Russ: Wow, 1928. Man, yeah.

John: That changed everything.

Russ: Yeah, it did.

John: Okay? Because before then, it was just fans and high ceilings and -

Russ: Well, and they had evaporator coolers, but those didn't work too well in Texas in the south at all.

John: Of course, not, no.

Russ: Too humid, yeah.

John: Too humid. Way too humid.

Russ: So you needed air conditioning. Cool.

John: All right. Okay. This week in business history in 1935, a guy named Charles Darrow patents the game Monopoly.

Russ: So he had a monopoly.

John: He had a monopoly on Monopoly. Yeah. And that's a game - it's a real estate game named after streets in Atlantic City, and -

Russ: Right. Board Walk, Park Place, yeah.

John: Board Walk, Park Place. You can go broke in a hurry in that game.

Russ: That's right.

John: This week in business history in 1937, Mae West performs a skit called "Adam and Eve," and gets her banned from NBC radio.

Russ: _____ a skit about Adam and Eve, but it was so racy, apparently, that they said, "Wow, you can't -"

John: We oughta try to listen to it.

John: Compare it to the lyrics of the rap music they're playing on the radio right now. You ever hear some of a that stuff?

Russ: Oh, yeah.

John: And then some of the DJs like Howard Stern and some of these other - of course, he's on - he's off the public airways.

Russ: Mae West coulda been on satellite radio. That woulda worked out well for her.

John: Yeah, but anyway, that's just an interesting dichotomy there. Okay. This week in business history in 1953, Hank Williams dies.

Russ: Oh, my goodness.

John: He was - he had a heart attack. He was driving on the way to a show in Canton, Ohio. It was speculated that he may have died from drug and alcohol abuse.

Russ: 'Cause he was real young, right?

John: Well, he was 29.

Russ: Wow.

John: This week in business history in 1961, the Beach Boys played their debut gig. This week in business history in 1974, Popular Electronics, which is a cool magazine -

Russ: Yes.

John: And there was Popular Mechanics, all pretty good stuff.

Russ: Yes, there was. Yeah.

John: Displays the Altair - actually covers. It must have been an article about the Altair 8800 computer back in 1974.

Russ: Which was really the beginning. I mean, it was a - didn't even have a keyboard.

John: Oh, really?

Russ: It was like hardwired together and stuff like that.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1975, the first Hail Mary pass - it was called a Hail Mary. I doubt - if you look at the history of pro football, I'm sure it wasn't the only time someone threw the ball up in the air, hoping someone would -

Russ: That's correct.

John: - for a touchdown. But it was called the Hail Mary pass when the Cowboys beat the Vikings 17 to 14. Now this happened in Minnesota.

Russ: Right. But the quarterback is the guy that came up with the phrase, "Hail Mary."

John: Yeah, it was Roger Staubach. He's been on the show.

Russ: And talked about it.

John: Yeah. He called it the Hail Mary. But that's -

Russ: 'Cause he was a good Catholic boy.

John: Yeah. But you say the first Hail Mary.

Russ: No. Well, it was the first one called the Hail Mary.

John: Yeah. But -

Russ: You know what they called it before then? The bomb.

John: The bomb.

Russ: They would say, "He's gonna throw a bomb."

John: The long bomb.

Russ: Yeah. The long bomb. And it was in a - it was actually in a press conference after the game they said, "Roger, my God. What did you think right before you threw it?" And he said, "Well, I just did a 'Hail Mary.'"

John: That's right.

Russ: Good Catholic boy, and that's what he did.

John: That's what he did.

Russ: That's what it is now.

John: That's what it is now.

Russ: All right.

John: This week in business history in 1991 is the last day of existence for the USSR.

Russ: Oh, my goodness.

John: And everybody thought they'd be great allies of the US, and they were for a while. But I've got an item coming up which would prove differently.

Russ: Okay.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1994, Melinda French - a woman named Melinda French really hits the lottery. She marries Bill Gates.

Russ: Yes, yes.

John: Okay? End of story. Okay? Now they can't give the money away fast enough. I mean, it's like - I mean, the more they give away, I mean, it keeps getting replenished -

Russ: Yes, it does.

John: - by the huge profits of the Microsoft Corporation. And - but, anyway, at least they're trying to help society.

Russ: Yep.

John: This week in business history in 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigns as president of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB thug, as the acting president.

Russ: And that was sort of the demise of their sort of becoming allies of ours.

John: I think over time. Yeah, right.

Russ: Yeltsin was kind of warming up to us.

John: Well, yeah, he was really -

Russ: When he was sober, he did.

John: Yeah, right. Well, anyway. Okay. This week in business history in the year 2000, we survived Y2K, which was probably one of the biggest scams -

Russ: We're still surviving it ten years later.

John: We're still surviving it.

John: I mean, really, the - this was all based on the last two digits of the year -

Russ: That's right.

John: - which is the way most of the computers at that time were kinda set.

Russ: That's right.

John: And how is it gonna - what's gonna happen when it flips over? Will airplanes drop outta the sky?

John: Will elevators crash?

Russ: Elevators will freeze and lock up, yeah.

John: That's right. Lions and tigers will be living together. I mean, it was like Armageddon. But nothing happened.

Russ: But - and a lotta money changed changes on computer consultants, man.

John: Oh, yeah, and business journals who wrote about Y2K.

Russ: Right, right.

John: Well, these people would come into our office and they'd say, "Hey, you realize what's gonna happen in a couple years?"

Russ: [Laughs]

John: It was like, "Holy cow."

Russ: What are we gonna do?

John: What are we gonna do? Flee. Run away. Run away.

Russ: And that wraps up this morning's history lesson.

John: Hey, that's enough, right?

Russ: No, that's a good job.

John: We're starting off with a tax scam and ending it with a high-tech scam.

Russ: All right. There you go. All right. All right. And that brings us to the Jargon Challenge -

John: Ah, yes.

Russ: Where we come up with a new word. I do. And John - it's kept from John all week.

John: That's right. It's hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar.

Russ: That's right. I present it to him right here and he's challenged to come up with a good meaning.

John: And I usually - more often than not, I come up with a meaning.

Russ: You've been doing great.

John: Yeah, right.

Russ: This is an interesting word today. Are you ready? Unibrow.

John: Oh, that's an eyebrow that goes all the way across.

Russ: Boy, I've never seen you get one that fast. You know that one.

John: I know that one. Yeah, right.

Russ: Oh, God. It was almost like it wasn't a contest today.

John: Actually, I make a lotta sales calls in New Jersey and a lotta people have unibrows up there. I said, "Boy, how do you get that eyebrow to go across like that?" Said, "Oh, that's a unibrow. It's hereditary."

Russ: All right. Now that brings us to Dumb Moments in Business. What do you have for us today?

John: Well, this is - history, sadly repeats itself all the time, and this is illustrative of why nobody should ever give a dime to the United Nations.

Russ: Okay.

John: Recently, the UN Security Council called an emergency meeting to come up with an official stance on North Korea's second attack on South Korea.

Russ: Yeah. The bombing and shooting missiles into that little island where people were just living in there, right?

John: Yeah, artillery barrages, and people were - people died. Yeah. The 15-member - there's 15 members of the Security Council, and none of them could agree on any criticisms for North Korea's unprovoked attack. And this was all according to Investors Business Daily, 'cause I'm kinda reading from the story a little bit. And that was an island off the coast of South Korea that got bombarded. And South Korea, because of this inaction and the timidity of the United States -

Russ: Or United Nations.

John: And the United -

John: Obama hasn't done anything.

Russ: True, too. Yeah.

John: He was out on the golf course when it happened, or something.

Russ: Okay.

John: The problem is, what it all gets down to is Russia and China.

Russ: Yeah?

John: Okay? We talked about Putin a while back.

Russ: Right.

John: And what's happened is that Russia and China, even though they talk a good game about wanting to have fair trade and liberalize their countries, they're really - they're still maintaining this Cold War stance that they had before the Berlin Wall fell down. So -

Russ: Meaning that they're - we shouldn't criticize North Korea. Just it's okay to bomb and kill people every once in a while.

John: Yeah, right. Yeah, 'cause they have to have an outlet for their hostility, right? Okay.

Russ: Just venting.

John: Yeah. So that's just venting, right. So, anyway, it's just a cautionary word.

Russ: Okay. Okay. Duly noted. Duly noted.

John: Duly noted. All right. Okay.

Russ: All right. And before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time once again for the very popular PKF Texas entrepreneur's playbook. [Silence from 0:14:33 to 0:14:43]

[PKF Entrepreneurs Playbook]

Russ:All right. And that wraps up this morning's School of Business. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.