Russ: This is the Businessmakers Show, heard on the radio, seen online at thebusinessmakers.com, the show that features the make-it-happen entrepreneurs.

John: That's right. These are the ones who built it, alright, I'll just say that.

Russ: Yeah, they built it. They built it.

John: They built it. Not only are they the artists and athletes of the free enterprise system, but they're the architects, the carpenters, the plumbers, the electricians, they're the ones who built the economy.

Russ: Yeah, right. Now they might have had to drive on a street or two that the government made.

John: Well, but where do you think the money to pay for the street comes from?

Russ: Well, the taxpayer and the entrepreneurs.

John: Yeah, most of those tax dollars come from wealthy people, right?

Russ: Yeah.

John: And most entrepreneurs, if they're successful, are wealthy.

Russ: The level of economic ignorance is at an all-time high right now.

John: That's right. It's too bad we didn't have what we were talking about before we started recording this show.

Russ: That's right.

John: If that discussion were on, I think we would be Nobel laureates.

Russ: We probably would.

John: Or we would never be allowed on the air again.

Russ: I think it would be the latter there. We should start, you know, there's different people that actually calculate and present through the press like an indicator. It's like a -

John: Yeah.

Russ: And we should start the EI Indicator, the Economic Ignorance Indicator, and we will base it - let's do it. Let's right now, we're founding it right here.

John: Okay. All right. Economic Ignorance indicator.

Russ: Consider that trademarked immediately.

John: Okay, yes.

Russ: And we will base it upon our gut feel, you know, and our conversations that we have with other people who have gut feels -

John: And our whim.

Russ: And our whim. That's right. And it is at a record height. We will report again next week. This is episode number 377, and in case you're listening to this in an historical perspective like it's way past this now, this is where it all started, right here in this August week in ---

John: The Economic Ignorance -

Russ: Indicator.

John: Indicator.

Russ: The EII.

John: And there'll be various indicators but we will know -

Russ: Yeah. Maybe we should start like even go ahead and get it like a value.

John: A value, a 1 to 10.

Russ: Yeah. Well, you don't have to limit it to 10. We're tending an all-time high right now. Let's say that it's at 173.

John: 173, right.

Russ: Yeah. This weekend, that's according to what we know about history, that's an all-time high, right?

John: It is, absolutely. Well, the debt's never been higher, the actual debt, you know.

Russ: Right, right, right. The discourse on the difference between the deficit and debt is totally misunderstood, at a high rate, more so than ever.

John: Yeah, the deficit's higher than it's ever been, ergo the national debt's higher than it's ever been, right, because the national debt is a collection of debt from the day the country was founded till now. The deficit is just what we're running at in this short period of time.

Russ: Right, right. Now a big catapulting effect on the Economic Ignorance Indicator was like started probably 14, 15 years ago with the subprime mortgage, the Fair Housing Bill when we said let's --

John: Well, I would say this actually started longer than just 14, 15 years ago because I think the nexus, there were probably like one or two center or beginning points of that subprime collapse, but one of those starting points was the Community Reinvestment Act when they were accusing these banks of not loaning to poor people because they were discriminating against minorities when really most of these banks - I'm not saying some of them weren't because everybody's got prejudice - but I would say for the most part these banks were not loaning to people because they were not good credit risks.

Russ: Right, because they probably suspected that they wouldn't be able to pay off the loan but then that began to not matter when economic ignorance began to take over.

John: That's right, which Congress egged on by forcing the banks to loan, to grant mortgages to people who couldn't pay them back.

Russ: Well, let's name some names.

John: Yeah.

Russ: Chris Dodd, Barney Frank.

John: Barney Frank, yeah.

Russ: But even the Republicans didn't stop them.

John: No. No, they didn't. No. No.

Russ: Which, you know, and some of the Wall Street guys really got out of hand playing poker with these mortgage-backed securities that they were making, but you know, the Confederate money, the Ponzi scheme was already started by Congress.

John: That's right, yeah. We can go on and on and on.

Russ: All right. So here it is, on _______.

John: We do have other parts of the show, right?

Russ: Yes, I think we do. So in episode 377, the Economics Ignorance Indicator -

John: Is 173.

Russ: -- is 173, and we'll keep you posted. All right. All right, but speaking of entrepreneurs -

John: Yeah. Who are they? Isn't that what we're about? Oh, those guys.

Russ: Yeah. Here's today's lineup. First up, Mr. Flip Flippen of the Flippen Group.

John: Okay, wow.

Russ: And what an alliteration name does he have.

John: What does he make? Flippers?

Russ: No. He should, though.

John: On those pinball machines, the little flippers? Well, somebody's got to make those.

Russ: Well, they do, yeah. There's a company. I don't think he has that but he has an unusual and interesting consulting firm about performance. He consults for many major league sports teams, you know, so he's there. But that alliteration - he's not the first alliteration guest we had. We also had Welcome Wilson on a few years ago.

John: Welcome Wilson, yeah, the big real estate tycoon.

Russ: Yeah, but Flip Flippen, that's a special alliteration, and you know, alliteration just means they both start with F. This one -

John: And not just they start with the same letter, but sometimes the same syllable.

Russ: Well, this one is. That's what this one is. Flip Flippen.

John: Yeah, right. Yes.

Russ: That would be like if your first name was Bed, and then your name would be Bed Beddow.

John: Or Brad Beddow, that'd be better.

Russ: Brad Beddow, but that wouldn't be a complete syllable. Or it would be like if my last name was Russell and my name was Russ Russell.

John: Russ Russell.

Russ: Yeah, that would be similar to this. All right, but there's another guest, and this is interesting too because there's a play on words with this guest too. His name is Brian Adams.

John: Brian Adams, right.

Russ: And the name of his company is Rumber.

John: Rumber. Rumber.

Russ: Which really should be in the jargon challenge round except you already know what it is.

John: Yeah, I know what it is, yeah.

Russ: What is it?

John: It's a material. Actually he uses it for flooring and some other things, and it's made out of rubber.

Russ: Rubber but shaped like lumber.

John: Yeah, right, in some cases it is. In some cases, like when they're conveying pipes out to the oil field, these things hold the pipes and they don't look like --.

Russ: Yeah. Well, they make, yeah, there's flooring. But that's why he calls it Rumber.

John: Rumber, right.

Russ: Yeah, yeah. All right, and that wraps up today's show. Thank you and bye-bye. No. But first, that's right, it's time for that Businessmakers School of Business, not your ordinary business school.

John: No, no, and after this conversation.

Russ: Yeah. We've already, yeah, we're exhausted. That's it!

John: Yeah, that's it. No, this will help people who listen to this School of Business on a regular basis, if they have an economic ignorant quotient, it will go down.

Russ: Yes, it will.

John: Because you learn a lot because we look at historic events. We look at the definitions of words. We look at dumb moments. I mean, when you put it all under the economic education continuum, you can't help but gain economic perspective.

Russ: Well, I'll give you an example. Every time that they increase the minimum wage, we always argue for what?

John: More!

Russ: Yeah, why don't they make $100 an hour?

John: No. $1000 an hour I think should be the minimum wage.

Russ: And then everybody could be rich.

John: They could all be millionaires and we can say, "Okay, we fixed the economy. "

Russ: It's all over. Nobody has to work any more.

John: Yeah, right.

Russ: All right, but we kick off the School of Business with -

John: Of course you'd only work about an hour a year.

Russ: That's right. We kick off the School of Business with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And this is pretty good. This is kind of for you because there's a music component to it but it has sort of a daily operational component to it. It's a quote by Hector Berlioz, French composer, 1803 to 1869, and it goes like this.

John: Yeah, I'm familiar with his work.

Russ: Okay. "Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down." So I guess composers feel that, you know, they have this, "Wow! This is better than Mozart's 5th Symphony," and they don't write it down.

John: Yeah. You're right, and -

Russ: And they forget it.

John: Then forget it, right, and I guess that was his modus operandi. Now Mozart wrote it all in his head. He didn't have to write it down. Well, he did but it was all in his head. Beethoven was continuously revising his manuscripts.

Russ: In his head or on paper?

John: No, on both. He was never satisfied, where Mozart would write stuff down and say, "Okay, that's the way it's going to be." But Berlioz obviously was probably not as organized and he couldn't remember.

Russ: Drank too much probably.

John: Probably, well, a lot of those people were using drugs and they didn't know that they were harmful, you know, like cocaine.

Russ: They thought they helped them memorize and play.

John: Yeah, well probably they helped, yeah, that they'd help them grow up big and strong when actually they'd be deteriorating because of the drug use.

Russ: Right. So what I do, you know, I mean I relate that same thing to business.

John: What, being forgetful?

Russ: I have business ideas -

John: Yeah, that you forget?

Russ: And I have had several award-winning business ideas.

John: That's right, you got an award from us one time, Fast Tech 50.

Russ: That's right, but I didn't write them down and forgot them, and if they were, I could have been like a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates probably.

John: Or that Facebook guy that's probably wondering what the heck's going on.

Russ: Well, he wrote it all down and he hopefully cashed in some of that. Man oh man, what a mess that is.

John: I know. That could be a perpetual dumb moment.

Russ: Well, it will show up in business history soon, in fact speaking of business history, what happened during this August week in business history?

John: Well, we're going to start in 1791. John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steam boat.

Russ: The steam boat?

John: The steam boat, not the steam engine.

Russ: In 1791?

John: Right, 1791.

Russ: So he knew, he probably saw the steam engine and knew it was patented and said, "I'm going to put it on a boat." ____ ______ ______.

John: Fulton had the first official steam boat. This is just the patent.

Russ: Just the patent, okay.

John: This week in business history in 1859, oil is found in Pennsylvania, up there in the northwestern part of Pennsylvania in Titusville. Edwin Drake was the guy behind and he found this source of crude oil and, you know, it's interesting how that industry grew. It grew kind of slowly until the gushers started happening right here in Texas, right out there in Spindletop.

Russ: Spindletop, right. What's interesting though about Pennsylvania is they're finding it again now in the shale, and I think that's - I might be wrong, but I think that's the Marcellus up there.

John: Yeah, that's more natural gas than it is oil

Russ: Well, it is but there's oil there too, but there's so much natural gas. I'll tell you one of my pet peeves right now is that do you realize we are on the verge of being energy-independent?

John: That's right, yeah.

Russ: And do you realize that also - I know you don't care about this. I don't know that I do but some people do - that the level of C02 went down last year.

John: Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, I read that.

Russ: And the reason it went down is because of this innovation.

John: The natural gas, more natural gas.

Russ: Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with the rules and all the stuff they're doing. It had to do with innovation and the shale gas, and on our Energy Makers Show we feature it all the time and cannot believe that there's not a national celebration. Not only are they getting it out and not only is it cleaner but it's almost changed the business where it's like manufacturing because they're not looking for a pocket of oil. They know exactly where the shale is and they go down to it, they go horizontal, they frack, they take it out, and it's turned it into a manufacturing process. It's like we know where it is and we know it's there but we're not going to drill until we like the market conditions and people need more. It's unbelievable!

John: It is. It is, quite. It's quite, you could do a whole show on it.

Russ: You could.

John: And we almost did back there.

Russ: Okay, okay. Does that wrap up the history lesson?

John: No, not quite.

Russ: All right.

John: This week in business history in 1869, the first death from a motor vehicle accident occurred.

Russ: 1869.

John: 1869, Mary Ward - this is like right after the Civil War. - an Irish scientist, was killed when she fell under the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins.

Russ: Now, wait a minute. Fell under the wheels.

John: They say it was experimental.

Russ: It sounds like somebody got thrown under the wheels.

John: Yeah, or maybe, you know, "Hey, Mary, look under there." "Okay, start it up!"

Russ: 186 - what if, you know, at the end of time and all of our souls are there together, and "What distinction do you have?" "Well, I was the first person to ever be killed by an automobile accident. I was followed by millions."

John: And find out who really killed JFK.

Russ: Well, we could. We have to find that out.

John: There's all kinds of things you could find out, yeah.

Russ: There you go.

John: Okay, this week in business history, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt's Revenue Act was passed. It took a cut out of the nation's rich people and they targeted the wealthy. It was called the Wealth Tax Act, and it increased taxes on rich people, big people, while lowering taxes for small businesses, and it didn't work.

Russ: Well, that was also maybe a slight beginning of economic ignorance, like "Here we go, all these people that are making the jobs, give us all your money."

John: You know, Franklin Roosevelt, I think you could call a patriot in many ways but he didn't know anything about economics.

Russ: I know. Very few of them do.

John: It's amazing, people get in as president and don't know what they're doing.

Russ: Well, even McCain in the last election said, "Yeah, I'm going to have to read up a little bit on economics before I go in." -- Jesus, come on!

John: Most economics out there can be distilled down into supply and demand. I mean, basically that's what it is, right?

Russ: Yes! Yes! Yeah, yeah.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1944, Paris is liberated, this week in business history, by the Allies, yeah.

Russ: Wow! If you survived, that probably was a joyous day.

John: That's right. Well, you know, Paris was kind of a neutral city there for a while.

Russ: It tried to be, right?

John: Well, not neutral politically but both sides had kind of agreed not to bomb it because it was such a beautiful city and had a lot of architecture, but while the Allies were approaching, Hitler wanted the city destroyed.

Russ: Well, I can understand that. If you were Hitler, you would too.

John: Yeah, but the guy who was running the show over there for him refused to carry out the order.

Russ: Wow, in subordination.

John: There was a movie made about that called "Is Paris Burning."

Russ: Wow, because Hitler wanted to know and they faked it and said, "Yes, it is?"

John: Well, they didn't answer him, but the movie was so bad that critics called it "Is Paris Boring?" That's a true story about it.

Russ: That's cool.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1955, another automotive story, William Cobb demonstrates the world's first solar-powered car at the General Motors Powerama in Chicago.

Russ: 1955?

John: Yeah.

Russ: Wow, think how far we've come now.

John: I know, ______cars.

Russ: Imagine being in a solar-powered car cruising down the Interstate at 80 miles an hour, and this big cloud front comes in? Where would you be? Stuck there in the middle of the _____.

John: You'd be trying to exit, man.

Russ: You couldn't because the car would stop.

John: Well, if you were rolling maybe.

Russ: Well, I guess momentum might take you a few meters.

John: You'd need some momentum if you were driving one of those things.

Russ: This show could use some momentum.

John: All right. This week in business history in 1957, the Russians, the USSR, announced a successful test of an ICBM, Intercontinental Multi-stage Ballistic Rocket, in1957, which helped, you know, exacerbate the cold war.

Russ: Well, I'll say so, and for those that were paying attention, it kind of scared the heck out of them.

John: Well, yeah, you know, the Russians - but they say that big deep down inside, the Russian government, the Communists, as brutal as it was to its people, actually loved their people.

Russ: Really?

John: Well, that's why they didn't - you know, we had this military called "Mutual Assured Destruction" meaning if the Russians send their nukes over, they knew we would send our nukes over and they'd be just as obliterated as we would be., and that's why they would never fire the first shot, and that's why we never fired the first shot because we knew they would send their - so it was called MADD, that was the acronym for it, MADD.

Russ: Well, it makes sense. But I think in 1957 when they first announced this, they weren't thinking about that. They just knew that we had'em.

John: They just wanted to scare the hell out of us and they succeeded.

Russ: Right. They might have been faking it but I don't think they were, we subsequently discovered.

John: All right, this week in business history, in 1966, the Beatles performed their last concert before paying fans in Candlestick Park. That was before - I guess Yoko had already glommed on to the band.

Russ: She was starting to mess with them already because it was an Id. But I didn't know it was in Candlestick. I thought it was at one of those New York Mets Stadium. It's out in San Francisco?

John: Well, it was in a stadium, just on the other side of the country.

Russ: Yeah, wow, I bet that was a good show.

John: It must have been a good show, well, you don't know.

Russ: Yeah, I know, well, think about it.

John: Because they were all probably at each other's throats by then.

Russ: Well, maybe.

John: Except Ringo. Ringo was probably just damned glad to be there.

Russ: Yeah, he's got a good job.

John: He had a good job of just - yeah.

Russ: Set for the future.

John: You know, there's only one drum solo he ever did in a Beatles song.

Russ: What song?

John: I forget the name of the song. It was one of the later ones, yeah.

Russ: He should have been with Iron Butterfly, that guy.

John: The Iron Butterfly, yeah, yeah.

Russ: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

John: Yeah, Herzegovina, yeah, yeah.

Russ: What's so interesting about this, and this is what's interesting about your history lesson is that 50 years from now when somebody's talking about Cold Play, right, their last concert, you can watch the whole concert.

John: That's right.

Russ: And this thing, I don't think it's anywhere. I mean, it was such a difficult endeavor to get film and all the crews and processing, and there are very far and few between shows of these concerts.

John: Well, maybe that never happened if they _____ _____. If a tree, what is that, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there?

Russ: We don't know, you know. Probably three-quarters of the people are no longer living even.

John: I know, and the other quarter don't remember anything because they were drugged up.

Russ: They were drugged up. Maybe there's a business in like a re-enactment business of these old concerts.

John: Well, they re-enact battles of the Civil War, maybe they could re-enact rock concerts. I think we have an idea.

Russ: I think we do. I want be Paul.

John: A buddy of mine, Steven Ron, he's a local attorney, he's got a Beatles cover band. We'll get him to go Candlestick park, we'll sell it out, we'll make millions because people will want to be there.

Russ: Great. You just have to dress in 1966 garb.

John: Well, they do. No, he's got it.

Russ: He's got all that. No, I'm not talking about the band, even the audience to come, you have to look like it.

John: God, what did we wear in the '60s? Bellbottoms, I guess.

Russ: I'm not. I'm wearing the same thing I wear today.

John: I can tell. It's like your timeless wardrobe.

Russ: Right. So that wrapped it up. What a lesson! Moving on, that brings us to Navigating Business Jargon. We've already had a taste of that about this week's guest with the Rumber Company.

John: The Rumber guy, yeah.

Russ: A combination of rubber and lumber, but this is different because this is a contest where I get to select a new word each week, hide it from John all week, he's continuously trying to find it, going through my papers and stuff.

John: That's right. When you're not at home, I've got a key to your house and I always feed your dog a chicken bone.

Russ: That's good. That's what she likes.

John: And it keeps the dog occupies.

Russ: That's right. But you never find it, you know, and so I say the word, John tries to guess the meaning. It can be a multiple word sort of phrase, that's what it is today, a two-word noun. You ready?

John: Yeah. Um-hum.

Russ: Green tape.

John: Green tape. Well, red tape is easily associated with government interference and all the things government throws in your way to get something accomplished

Russ: Cumbersome bureaucracy.

John: Cumbersome and bureaucratic. Well, green tape, that applies to the environmental movement when you're trying to -

Russ: Ladies and gentlemen, hold your calls, we've got a winner.

John: All right, yes! It's about time, I've got a whole _____ dry streak.

Russ: Yeah, you had, you had. This is right on. Excessive environmental regulations and guidelines that must be followed before an official action can be taken.

John: That's right, green tape, yeah.

Russ: There's lots of green tape these days.

John: Oh, my gosh, yeah.

Russ: Nothing wrong with being green but green tape.

John: It hard. It isn't easy being green.

Russ: It isn't!

John: It isn't, no.

Russ: All right, I think that's just about going to wrap it up except - except for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook --

John: Right, and Greg Price --

Russ: -- on the BM.

John: --my main man.

Russ: All right, and that wraps up today's School of Business, but stay tuned in for our interview with Flip Flippen of the Flippen Group followed by our interview with Brian Adams of Rumber. This is the Businessmakers Show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.