Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. This is Episode number 311 of this show. You might hear that background noise.

John: That's right. There's a reason for it, Russ.

Russ: Yeah, that's right. We're at the kind of after event party sort of.

John: That's right. Well, everyone's gone but us -

Russ: Next day. That's right. And you're talkin' about Celebrate Enterprise, right?

John: That's right. At the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts. We're sitting here at a little ante room -

Russ: Yeah.

John: -- off of the grand foyer which is where a lot of the Celebrate Enterprise events were.

Russ: Yeah.

John: And we're here reveling in the tremendous success we've had here.

Russ: Wow. What an event it was.

John: Yeah.

Russ: Now this is year three or four or five -

John: Five, fifth year, right.

Russ: Wow.

John: Right, and you've got some interviews lined up for some of these people.

Russ: Right. You bet.

John: We'll release the list here on another show.

Russ: That's right.

John: Okay

Russ: That's right. But as we were kicking it off, this is that show that does also celebrate innovate and entrepreneurship.

John: You bet and these are the people that help the economy grow and are the ones that hire a lot of the people and get that GDP number up where it's making our country the viable entity it's been for a long time.

Russ: Alright. And here's our lineup for today. That's right. It's time for the Businessmakers School of Business brought to you by the Ambrose Group, these guys that have really been helping a lot of our listeners out on their property taxes and -

John: That's right.

Russ: On cost segregation, on valuation, on appraisals and they're just a top notch organization.

John: That's right. As many of you know, at least I've found out over the years that when your house is appraised by the government, I know they look at comp sales and things that have been done to the property and all that, but I think a lot of it has to do with how much money the government needs.

Russ: Exactly.

John: So it's from each according to their means to each according to their needs, which is why you need a company like the Ambrose folks who will make sure it' s a fair evaluation of your property that makes economic sense.

Russ: Right.

John: That has a logic to it.

Russ: Right. And when you - in fact, you made a great point. It's like a zero sum game. It's based on how much the government needs. So if others are out there protesting and getting adjustments made -

John: Guess what happens - that's right.

Russ: -- and you're not -

John: Guess what happens?

Russ: You gotta get in the game.

John: You get the short end of the stick.

Russ: The Ambrose Group established in 1994.

John: Wow.

Russ: And a leader in the valuation of real estate with offices in Houston and Dallas. A first class organization.

John: Yes, you bet.

Russ: Alright. We kick off the School of Business each weekend with a quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: That's right. Today I'm quoting Will Rogers.

John: Oh, Will Rogers.

Russ: That's right.

John: Great political humorist.

Russ: That's right.

John: Yes.

Russ: And here it is. Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there.

John: That's right. You gotta keep moving. Never stop improving your position, which is a business tentative position or someone's gonna take it away from you.

Russ: Right. So there's two parts. You gotta be on the right track and you gotta keep moving.

John: That's right.

Russ: Alright. That brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this May week in business history?

John: Well, okay. We're gonna start in 1686.

Russ: Whoa.

John: Now this is a long time ago. You see this stuff and you think well why - I didn't know it was around that long. Well this is one of those things. Gabrielle Daniel Fahrenheit was born in the city of Danzig, which is now Gdansk, Poland.

Russ: Okay.

John: So he was born. He moved to Amsterdam at age 15. Became a builder of scientific instruments.

Russ: Okay.

John: Who knew?

Russ: Yeah.

John: Okay. And he did not actually invent the thermometer, but his best known accomplishments is for his work on the thermometer.

Russ: Okay

John: And he came up with the Fahrenheit measuring system for temperatures.

Russ: Works pretty good. Did he have like a - was there like a family feud going on with the Celsius family?

John: Yeah, there always is.

Russ: Yeah.

John: The Hatfield and McCoy's.

Russ: Right.

John: The Montague's and Capulet's, the Sharks and the Jets.

Russ: Fahrenheit -

John: The Fahrenheit's and they had a big knife fight. Okay, they did. I'm not kidding. They had knives, switchblades and chains under a highway overpass just like in West Side Story.

Russ: That's right.

John: And the Celsius family had a big C on their shirts and the Fahrenheit's had an F, but eventually they worked it out.

Russ: Alright. Good deal.

John: Okay, alright. This week in business history in 1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals. Where would we be without bifocals?

Russ: My goodness, 1785, bifocals. That's pretty cool.

John: Yeah. That's before the French Revolution by the way.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Okay. This week in business history 1896, the Dow Jones, which originally met under a buttonwood tree -

Russ: That's right. Where they were founded.

John: Founded. Begins an index of 12 industrial stocks. The closing for the day in May 26th of 1896 was 40.94.

Russ: We should get the 12 industrial stocks. See if any of them are still in business.

John: Ya' know, we should. Okay, I'll get right on it.

Russ: Okay.

John: This week in business history in 1900 Associate Press news service forms in New York.

Russ: Wow.

John: The AP.

Russ: The AP.

John: Alright. Used to be I would say a respectable news organization at one time -

Russ: Yeah, okay.

John: Okay.

Russ: Used to be, right?

John: Yeah. I'd say they've slipped a bit.

Russ: Okay.

John: Not all the time, but enough to notice. Let's put it that way. This week in business history in 1911 the first Indianapolis 500 auto race is run.

Russ: Whew.

John: And actually I think the track was made out of bricks.

Russ: Wow.

John: Which is why they call it the brickyard.

Russ: Right

John: What some people don't know, the World War I flying ace, Eddie Rickenbacher actually drove and won that race -

Russ: Wow.

John: -- at least one time that I know of.

Russ: Cool.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1915 Thomas Edison invents telescribe that record telephone conversations.

Russ: Wow.

John: So 1915.

Russ: They were just barely having telephone conversations much less _______ --

John: I know. There was only like five phones in the entire United States. No, there was a lot more than that. Okay. Moving on, this week in business history in 1927, Henry Ford stops producing the Model T car and begins the Model A.

Russ: Wow.

John: And ya' know, the Model T was fine for its day -

Russ: Sure.

John: -- but you have to improve your position -

Russ: That's right.

John: Just like we were talkin' about in that Will Rogers ______ --

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

John: And he knew he had to perfect and continue innovating -

Russ: Cool.

John: So what better way than to have a new model.

Russ: That's right.

John: Okay. Instead of hey, it's the same old thing. We just added white walls to it.

Russ: Right. And his company is actually doing pretty well these days.

John: That's right, yeah. It's amazing when the market decides the value of your car versus -

Russ: That's right.

John: -- Washington bureaucrats. Okay. This week in business history in 1937 the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opens to vehicular traffic.

Russ: My goodness. What an -

John: ;1937.

Russ: - what an engineering feat that was, too. Gees.

John: Oh yeah. And they never stopped painting it since.

Russ: Right. That's true. That's true.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1946 patent filed in the U.S. for the H bomb.

Russ: Huh.

John: Yeah.

Russ: I wonder how valuable the patent is for that. You don't sell a lot of H bombs probably.

John: I know. Well I'm waiting for the patent for the F bomb.

Russ: Yeah, right.

John: I hear enough of those on TV -

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

John: -- ________ a lot of money.

Russ: They must not be patented yet, the F bomb -

John: The F bomb. Okay. This week in business history in 1954 IBM announces the vacuum tube electronic brain that can form 10 million operations an hour.

Russ: Yeah. That's not very many compared to my iPhone -

John: That's a snail's pace -

Russ: or right.

John: What's an iPhone perform?

Russ: I have no idea, but we just -

John: There probably aren't enough zeroes -

Russ: -- ________ _______ to the dust, right.

John: There's probably not enough zeroes. Okay. This week in business history in 1961 JFK sets goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade in a speech that he gave at the Rice Stadium, Rice University Stadium and then he repeated that same statement later on and when he was in Washington, but it was first -

Russ: First one's at Rice Stadium.

John: Rice Stadium.

Russ: Right here. You bet.

John: Rice University, right. Okay. This week in business history in 1966, the Beatles release Paperback Writer. This week in business history in 1971 the rock group Iron Butterfly disbands and their famous song -

Russ: Which is your favorite.

John: Oh yeah. In a Gadda Da Vida. Yeah, In a Gadda Da Vida was a little known piece of territory right next to Bosnia Herzegovina.

Russ: Iron Butterfly wrote a song about it -

John: And Iron Butterfly, well they were impressing it because they knew the importance of that little piece of land.

Russ: Right.

John: And how controversial it would become later on during the big war they had in the Balkans.

Russ: Right. No, you don't get this stuff on regular business history lessons.

John: I don't know anybody that could make up stuff like this. Alright. This week in business history in 1972 the White House plumbers break into the Democratic national headquarters at Watergate. Now the plumbers was a group of security guys that Nixon wanted to put together -

Russ: Yeah.

John: -- to find out who was leaking all this information to the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Russ: Right. So those -

John: And this was before Watergate.

Russ: Yeah, right.

John: And eventually the plumbers were led - they decided to break into the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate office complex.

Russ: Right.

John: To see what they could find.

Russ: Right. If we have any young listeners today, these guys were not really card carrying plumbers.

John: No, no. They were spooks. Gordon Liddy who's still out there. Now he's pitching gold for a gold sales company. He also has a radio show, used to have one that was actually pretty good.

Russ: Right. Now for our people also that are young, did Forrest Gump really play a role in ________ --

John: No, Forrest Gump is an enigma -

Russ: It's not a real person.

John: He's a figment of someone's imagination. This week in business history in 1976 in the Judgment of Paris, wine testers rate wines from California higher than their French counterparts challenging the notion of France being the foremost producer of the world's best wines.

Russ: Yeah, they made a movie about it.

John: Yeah, the movie's called Bottle Shock.

Russ: Now is the movie true?

John: The movie, well it's based on this so - in the case of any movie that's based on a real thing, they do combine characters and alter the storyline for dramatic purposes.

Russ: Kinda' like Forrest Gump and breaking into the Watergate.

John: Yeah, 'cause there is no such thing as Forrest Gump.

Russ: Okay.

John: Okay. They didn't break into the Watergate according to the movie -

Russ: He viewed it.

John: He was looking out his hotel window and saw these lights on and called the police -

Russ: And called security, yeah.

John: Actually this judging took place not only once, but twice 'cause years after they did the same thing and the California -

Russ: California kept winning.

John: Right. Finally this week in business history in 1990 the cost of rescuing saving and loan failures is put up at 130 billion. This is in 1990. The Resolution Trust Corporation. You talk about chump change -

Russ: Chump change -

John: I know. People were going -

Russ: That was a deal.

John: I know. Everybody thought oh no, the world's coming to an end. Well trillions of dollars later we're still not out of -

Russ: That's right. Alright. That wraps up the history lesson.

John: Fortunately, yes.

Russ: That's a good one though. Great lesson.

John: Well we try to make up this stuff so it's interesting.

Russ: Right.

John: We never let the facts get in the way of a good this week in business history item.

Russ: Exactly.

John: Okay.

Russ: Alright and that brings us to our vocabulary lesson.

John: Oh yes. My favorite 'cause I'm mentally challenged -

Russ: Now it is time for Business Jargon... That's right. That's right.

John: Not that I am mentally challenged, but my mind is challenged -

Russ: I challenge you, yeah, with this contest because I go out and find a brand new word and do not share it with John.

John: Nope, nope.

Russ: And he guesses the meaning right here -

John: Yeah. And this is no jive. I gotta alert everybody that I do not know the word or combination of words or whatever he's got cooked up.

Russ: Right.

John: I just rely on my own native intelligence.

Russ: Right.

John: And skills and breaking down the word and then recombining it in a definition that hopefully -

Russ: Sometimes is right.

John: Sometimes is right.

Russ: And as is normally the case, today's word is a noun.

John: Okay, alright.

Russ: Digilante.

John: Digilante, okay. Vigilante is a lante that is out there taking justice into their own hands.

Russ: Right.

John: And digilante is someone who digitally on the net, on the web -

Russ: Ooh, hold your calls, ladies and gentlemen, we got a winner -

John: -- and takes things in their own hands and changes a lot of stuff. They'll just go in and if they don't like what they like they just change it, like Wikipedia -

Russ: Stop, stop, stop. No, it's a person who uses digital tools and techniques to avenge a crime.

John: Oh, okay.

Russ: Now maybe that can include changing it.

John: Yeah, right. That's close enough. I'm pretty close.

Russ: No, we give you a win, but maybe you expanded it there. If you're a digilante and you know this guy committed a crime and you can't find the digital proof, you can move some X's and O's and 1's and 0's around and claim that it's proven.

John: That's right.

Russ: That's right. A digilante. Good word. Alright. That brings us to dumb moments. Do you have a dumb business story -

John: Okay. Dumb moments. This is a - classical music usually starts out with a theme.

Russ: Right, okay.

John: Okay, in a symphony or concerto and then there's a variation which spins off of that theme and then they come back to the main theme and then another - well this is a variation of stupidity.

Russ: Okay

John: We all know the Obama care is highly suspect. It's a 2,700 word law that nobody read before they voted for it.

Russ: Right.

John: Matter of fact, Nancy Pelosi who was Speaker of the House at the time said, "Well we really won't know what's in the bill until we pass it. Most people know what's in the bill after we pass it." Well the thing is not everybody's thrilled with the Obama law and so many -

Russ: People that have read it point out a lot of problems in it.

John: Oh, there's a lot of problems in it. So many that there's waivers. In other words, the Department of Health and Human Services is granting waivers to certain organizations.

Russ: Meaning you don't have to abide by it.

John: You don't have to abide by it or you don't have to abide to certain portions of it and up until recently there were about 1,000 companies and organizations, a lot of them labor unions -

Russ: Right.

John: -- and companies that have high degree of labor unions, but now there've been, lately just the other day there were 204 new waivers.

Russ: So how many waivers have there been?

John: There's now 1,372 - now these aren't 1,372 people. These are 1,372 companies -

Russ: Companies or organizations -

John: -- or organizations. Now true, according to Health and Human Services the waivers are only temporary and only apply to one provision of the law. I won't get into the provision of law. It's kinda' technical, but when has anything the government done been temporary?

Russ: That's true.

John: And when has it only applied to one thing. Usually it spills over into 10 other things or 20 other things or 30 other things.

Russ: It probably means those of us that don't get waivers, we're probably gonna carry the load, now more of the load, right?

John: Right. There's a trade publication called The Hill, which is read by all these Congressional staffers and people interested in policy wonks that are interested in The Hill. It's actually a pretty interesting magazine. I'm just gonna quote the last sentence of this story.

Russ: Okay.

John: Administration officials say the law allows the Health and Human Services Department to grant the waivers to avoid disrupting the insurance market before the law overhauls the insurance system in 2004. So they're waiting until - excuse me, 2014. So what they're doing is they're waiting until 2014 and then start disrupting the insurance market. So they're just stating off the inevitable and Ronald Reagan has one of my favorite quotes is a business person that tries to appease the government is like a man standing with a crowd around the swamp hoping the alligator eats him last and eat him last he will. This is a perfect example of that.

Russ: Do you think we should go for a waiver maybe?

John: Hey, I think we should. Why not? Everybody else is doing it.

Russ: We should do it. Alright. We're gonna do it.

John: If we get the waiver we'll promise forever more to sing the praises of Obama care.

Russ: I think that's part of the condition -

John: To our thousands and hundreds and millions of listeners, but keep in mind these sound waves just keep going into outer space.

Russ: That's right.

John: They just keep going -

Russ: And we've got it on the web and people keep listening to it there.

John: I know. I know, right.

Russ: So we've got a lot of pull. Alright. Before we wrap up this morning's School of Business it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's playbook.

John: Here he comes. Greg Price. Ya' know PKF is one of the several founding sponsors of some of the Celebrate Enterprise events.

Russ: Are they? Wow.

John: We love these guys. Here's Greg right now. A one and a two and a -

Russ: A one and a two and a.