Russ: This is the BusinsessMakers Show, heard on the radio and seen online at http://www.TheBusinessMakers.com. Episode number 341 of that show that champions the private sector, the free enterprise, the entrepreneurs.

John: That's right. The free enterprise system, you might say: capitalism, entrepreneurship, and they're the ones that really create the jobs. I mean, the government program does very little in that regard, if anything.

Russ: It is funny. It is funny how much they talk about ______ ______.

John: Yeah, and they say, "Well, if we just did this, if we just turned this dial, if we just took this lever and moved it a few inches. You know, it's really just turning the free - turning the entrepreneur class loose. You need some rules. You need - you can't survive without the rule of law. We're not saying we need anarchy, but, you know, the U.S. Register has got about 90,000 pages in it. I think they could probably do with 10,000, 20,000 pages less. So anyway, that's my thought on it.

Russ: Well, plus, if they ever get it right and get out of the way, it's going to take for - a long time to come back.

John: Yes, it will.

Russ: All right. All right. And a quick word for the E.O. Houston Group.

John: Uh-huh, right. Yeah.

Russ: That's a group of entrepreneurs creating jobs.

John: Yeah, and they know what they're doing.

Russ: You bet. All right. And here's our lineup for today. First up, Marc Ostrofsky, author of "Get Rich Click", a repeat guest on the show. And that's going to be followed by Steven Koch, an internet marketing professor at the University of Houston, talking about the Google global internet marketing contest. But first, that's right, it's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business. Not your business as usual.

John: That's right. That's right. We really go into the ground-level education format here where we talk about stuff that you really never heard of but important things that have happened. In a lot of cases, you don't know how these things are, like the sewing machine or the button or the zipper, and we cover all of that stuff. And it's amazing how little we know before we dive into this.

Russ: That's right. And they don't cover this at regular school.

John: That's how little - and I'm surprised - and it's amazing how little we know anyway.

Russ: That's true.

John: But that's why we have to make some of this up, you know.

Russ: Wasn't it last week or the week before that we talked about the clip-on tie.

John: The clip-on tie, yeah. National Nerd Week, followed by the plastic pocket protector, which we'll probably be talking about at a later date.

Russ: That's probably true. All right. But we kick off the School of Business each week with a Quote of the Day.

John: Quote of the Day, yes.

Russ: And today it comes from John Benfield. Now, I researched this extensively, but I didn't research it enough to know what else John Benfield did.

John: Okay. What else did he do?

Russ: I don't know.

John: Oh, okay.

Russ: But this is his quote.

John: He was pretty talkative. I guess that's where you got the quote. This is a talkative young man.

Russ: Here it is. "Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." Pretty good, isn't it?

John: Yeah.

Russ: For all you weasels out there.

John: Yeah, there's hope for you yet.

Russ: All right. And that brings us to This Week in Business History. What happened during this December week in business history?

John: All right. This week in business history, 1620, the Mayflower passengers, the Puritans, come ashore at Plymouth Harbor. Now, they escaped England, okay, Great Britain because of religious persecution. That was the reason why a lot of people came here initially, to get political, religious freedom, and economic freedom at the same time.

Russ: And that was because they kind of insisted over there in England that you be part of the Church of England.

John: Yeah, they wanted to separate from the Church of England, and we all know how the Church of England got started because Henry VIII wanted to divorce Anne Boleyn so he created his own church.

Russ: That made that okay.

John: Which made that okay. So it was okay if you were the king of England, and you wanted to separate from the mother church, but if you were just a normal person back in those days, you had to flee the country, which is what they did.

Russ: Get on the Mayflower, and you head over there.

John: Yeah, right. Okay. All right. This week in business history, 1820, wow, 200 years later, Missouri imposes $1.00 bachelor tax on unmarried men between the ages of 21 and 50.

Russ: Maybe that's an idea that this -

John: Well, I'm surprised we haven't - I'm surprised that tax is not on the books yet. I mean, it was at one time.

Russ: Yeah, it was.

John: You know, $1.00. If you want to be unmarried, it'll only cost $1.00 to be unmarried.

Russ: Yeah, and usually if you were already married and you tried to get unmarried it's a little bit more than $1.00.

John: Yeah, it sure is. Okay. This week in business history is the birthday of the first self-made millionairess.

Russ: What year was this?

John: Yeah, 1820, same year.

Russ: Oh, we're still in 1820. Okay.

John: Right. Yeah. She escaped the bachelorette tax.

Russ: All right. Congratulations.

John: Okay. But her name was Sarah Breedlove, also known as Madam C.J. Walker, American businesswoman. Hair care. She got in the hair care business. And she was also a philanthropist because she had all that money. She had to give it away, you know.

Russ: Yeah, cool. And I remember this from prior years. She was a black woman too, so she was -

John: That's right. The Guinness Book of Records cites Walker as the first female, black, white or whatever, who became a millionaire by her own achievements. This was back in 1820. This was before the Alamo. This is right after the War of 1812.

Russ: If she was here today we could have her on Leisa Holland Nelson's Women Mean Business.

Russ: I think she would be the one interviewing. We like Leisa, but, you know. Okay. This week in business history in 1871, Samuel Clemens patents the elastic suspenders.

Russ: Well, there you go.

John: There you go. Wow. Yeah. So straps can be used for vests, pantaloons and other garments. I wonder what the other garments were.

Russ: I don't know.

John: I don't know. Maybe the jockstrap.

Russ: Suspenders for a jock.

John: Okay. And it seems they used elastic suspenders. Who would have thought. Okay. This week in business history the - in 1922, the 14 Republics formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Russ: Wow.

John: Now, I don't think those republics came along voluntarily and say, "Hey, let's all join this communist government, so we can be repressed for the next 60 years," or whatever, 70 years.

Russ: And it didn't turn out like the leaders thought in the end.

John: Well, I think it turned out like the Soviet leaders thought because they wanted to - you know, they wanted to be in power.

Russ: Be in power. Absolute power.

John: And expand their empire and all of that.

Russ: Yeah, right.

John: In 1939, this week in business history, Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph, the ninth reindeer. Now, I didn't know this until I read this, Rudolph was created by Robert May as part of employment with Montgomery Ward. I guess it was a publicity stunt.

Russ: Yeah, must have been part of his job description. "We'd like you to sort of come up with a song."

John: With a fake reindeer, yeah.

Russ: To help us celebrate Christmas.

John: Yeah, Rudolph. And I don't know whether he wrote the song or not, but he did create the ninth reindeer who had the red nose with the little filament in there that would make it glow, so Santa wouldn't crash is sleigh on the side of a 747 or something.

Russ: So maybe before he created the ninth reindeer, there were - the reindeer were out there, but they had trouble or something in the dark.

John: Yeah, well, they couldn't see their way in the dark, and they were fighting over who would be the lead reindeer. Plus, they were asking Santa, going, "What the heck? You have us doing this. It's cold up here, you know."

Russ: We can't fly anyway.

John: Yeah, right. No one said we had to fly.

Russ: And there must not have been a song because the song was called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

John: Yes, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Russ: But he didn't - but the guy that created it might not have made the song.

John: We don't know that yet.

Russ: We need to do some research.

John: Yeah, we'll get right on it. This week in business history, in 1967, the movie "The Graduate", the iconic movie staring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft - actually Anne Bancroft was only a couple of years older than Dustin Hoffman.

Russ: Yeah, but played -

John: But played a very good actress, and she - it premiered in plastics. Remember, "The future is in plastics." Okay.

Russ: Absolutely. That guy was right too. If you go out ______ and you look how the plastic industry has expanded since then, my goodness.

John: Yeah, it's amazing. Okay. This week in business history in 1969 David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash premiere together in California.

Russ: ______ ______ history. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and then later on Neil Young.

John: Neil Young. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did that Woodstock album, which was pretty good.

Russ: Yeah.

John: This week in business history in 1998, President Bill Clinton is impeached. Now, people sometimes misunderstand the word "impeachment". Impeachment is like an indictment. And the House of Representatives determines whether the - a president should be removed from office. They do not do the removal. They just say, "Hey, there's a case to be made," and they prepare an indictment.

Russ: And then he didn't get removed.

John: No, because the Senate just didn't do anything.

Russ: Right. And then subsequently, it's almost been forgotten that this has happened, and he's looked at again as a good president, mainly because he was so creative and got to ride in on the subprime mortgage scam, which made the economy look great.

John: Yeah, right.

Russ: It did. Unemployment was down, and we - as we always say here we should do that again.

John: We should do that again, only just don't let the bubble burst this time.

Russ: Right. Just keep making the prices go up forever.

John: Put those dials and levers we were talking about. Yeah, okay. This week in business history in 2003, a SpaceShipOne flight LL - 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first supersonic flight.

Russ: And that's those guys that are kind of privatizing the space industry.

John: Yeah, there's a lot of that going on, and that's where it's headed.

Russ: Yeah, that's cool.

John: Yeah. And then last but not least this week in business history, 2010, Muhammad Bouazizi, and this became the catalyst for the Tunisian - boy, that was a year ago.

Russ: A year ago, right.

John: The Tunisian Revolution, which set off this so-called Arab Spring, which is anything but what people thought it was going to be.

Russ: Well, it's not going to be that refreshing. I think the result afterwards -

John: Well, some of these countries are voluntarily submitting their population to Sharia law, which is no picnic, I can tell you that.

Russ: Right. But what a statement that was.

John: Actually they outlaw picnics. They're not allowed any fun at all in their Sharia law.

Russ: They can't have picnics, right.

John: I don't know.

Russ: Well, the women can't come.

John: No, they have to stay home. Yeah.

Russ: Can you imagine, even as a guy, why would you want to live in a society that treated women like that?

John: I don't know. It's mass insanity, I think.

Russ: I don't get it. But anyway, this guy, Muhhamad, what a statement. I mean, it was -

John: Yeah, you set your own self on fire. That's -

Russ: That's bigger than driving a petition and getting people to sign it.

John: Or riding a horse naked through London to protest.

Russ: This is bigger. This is bigger.

John: Much bigger, yeah.

Russ: All right. And that wraps up today's history lesson.

John: That's it.

Russ: It was a fantastic one, I have to admit.

John: We steamrolled right through that thing, didn't we?

Russ: All right. And that brings us to Navigating Business Jargon.

John: Right. Don't know the word.

Russ: I tell you, I struggled finding a word today.

John: Well, because we've run out of words.

Russ: Yeah, I think we've covered them all.

John: We have to go back to five years ago.

Russ: No, I just roll back -

John: We ought to do a "where is that word now?" See if it's in the common vernacular or whether it just kind of withered away.

Russ: Yeah, because some jargon words evaporate as quickly as they come into existence.

John: That's because we make them up, and they don't catch on right away.

Russ: But this is one that I want to catch on, so I'm going to repeat it from only about four weeks ago. And if you don't remember it don't be embarrassed. I'll help you. The word - it was so good - ineptocracy.

John: Yeah, that's what we live in now.

Russ: That's right.

John: That's all I have to say.

Russ: It's a system where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

John: Who came up with that word?

Russ: I don't remember but boy is it ever good.

John: That should be kind of our slogan.

Russ: That's right. We should find - we should elect this guy as president.

John: Yeah, he figured it out pretty good in one sentence. Here we go. All right.

Russ: All right. And that brings us to dumb moments. What kind of dumb moment do you have?

John: Well, you have a dumb moment for me.

Russ: I think it's a good moment.

John: A good moment. Right.

Russ: It's a reversal of a dumb moment.

John: It's a reversal of a dumb moment. What's that?

Russ: All right. This past week, probably many in our audience know, the Canadians decided to officially leave the Kyoto Treaty.

John: Yeah, right. This is bogus.

Russ: Well, I think what motivated them is I think they did the numbers and they realized, "My god, did we agree to ship our money to these other places?"

John: Yeah, do you know the U.N. wants to put together a climate court? Did you hear about that?

Russ: No.

John: Yeah, they want to do a climate court of any country that's not giving enough money and cutting back their emissions.

Russ: And spewing too much carbon.

John: Goes to a court, probably in the Hague. That's where all these stupid international tribunals end up. I don't know whether it's in the Hague or not. But yeah it's in - it was announced a couple weeks ago, but this could be a response to that.

Russ: Right. Canada said, "We're out of here."

John: We're out of here, pal.

Russ: And Canadians are generally - are very environmentally -

John: You know, if the climate lobby loses Canada, I'd say the party's over.

Russ: But I know some Canadians, and they were always wanting to champion global warming because suddenly that cold climate they had up there would suddenly become more suitable.

John: That's right. They wouldn't be able to play hockey outdoors.

Russ: That's right. All right. And before we wrap up today's School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneurs Playbook.

John: And here we are. Here's Greg Price. A one and a two and a -

Russ: All right. And that wraps up today's School of Business. Stay tuned in for our interview with Marc Ostrofsky, author of "Get Rich Click" and Stephen Koch, internet marketing professor at the University of Houston. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at http://www.thebusinessmakers.com.