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Keep Your Mind on Business
North Miami Beach, Florida 1-19-2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
KEEP YOUR MIND ON BUSINESS
It seems to me that the business of business should be minding its
business. If you look at what has been going on with increasing pace over
the last few years you find that businesses are not in business of selling
their products to you or provide you directly with services. Let me
explain.
My bank's business is to hold my money and lend it out to others at a
profit and return a small percentage of that profit to me. The bank also
lets me withdraw it as I need it. The bank also provides other such
services and in the past I found that the teller or manager was familiar and
there was a friendship. But my bank is owned by another bank and this
other bank is in the process of buying other banks, cutting a swath through
the banking and credit industries, and (funnily enough) fishing, shipping,
and potash mining in Ecuador.
What this says to me is that the business of business is to make money at
any endeavor where this business does not deal directly with people. Call
me naïve or foolish, but I don't trust the corporate CEO's and Boardrooms to
have MY interests at heart. I like the give and take in joking with the
checker in the supermarket (I have reservations here since my folks ran a
"mom and pop" grocery and deli shop and were run out of business by the big
guys). I have made friends with the personable and likeable fella who sold
us our Relax the Back beds and loungers. We have a "friends" relationship
and dine together and visit when we check his latest inventory against our
arthritic needs.
I would think that the gasoline business would be interested in selling
fuel for the tanks of car owners. If I am not mistaken, the power brokers
are more interested in controlling other sources of energy. Windmills that
generate electricity and devices that convert sunlight into electricity are
the stakes that are fought for in the boardrooms of the oil producing
companies. Their business is not putting gasoline in my car's tank but
buying up cereals, bakeries, messenger services and agri-businesses. What do
you make of this?
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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