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Expert witness in nearly all areas of business: finance, marketing, management, compensation, ethics...Author of 11 books on money and commerce

Interests: Licensed Pilot Single Engine Sailor Skier Welder Chinese Martial Arts student Motorcycles

Recent Activity

In honor of the late Rabbi Alan Lew

If you want to read in detail about Alan’s life, there are many references on the Internet. He wrote five books on his practice. I knew Alan for several decades and loved him. He practiced Zen at the San Francisco Zen Center, where I knew him. He later became a rabbi and served at a San Francisco conservative congregation where... Continue reading

Posted 2 days ago at Pro Commerce

1

The happiest era

I was eight years old at the end of World War II. I have lived in the happiest era in human history. My life has been bountiful. I’ve travelled the world for seven decades in the modern world of global airlines and lived many years abroad. The whole planetary adventure was at a cost of one or two earlier transAtlantic... Continue reading

Posted Nov 12, 2018 at Pro Commerce

1

All that wealth and envy

Interesting that most of the great new wealth of the past three decades is concentrated in the San Francisco and peninsula area. Since nearly all of these nuevo riche made their money in tech they are doing something not surprising. The new techie wealth is investing in new technology. Investing in start-ups and start-up funds. Billions of this new money... Continue reading

Posted Nov 4, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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The caravan and decent commerce

This is the beginning of November and a horde of more than 10,000 people are travelling from Central America to the U.S. Some people have suggested that these people should turn around, overthrow their own governments and create their own decent economic society like ours. This is where my analysis in The Most Important Book in Human History comes into... Continue reading

Posted Oct 31, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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David, David, I love your comment. I don't think it is a contradiction. Europe is a similar example. The neo-communist revolutionaries were a large but not dominant force in Europe from the French Revolution. The hereditary elite were weakened by both World Wars and temporarily defeated in England and Germany. But they returned to near total power today while supporting the neo-communism that had become successful and popular. That is where they are today. Europe never had the vast open lands for citizens to escape to. Europe only had America, where the first true pro-commerce society emerged away from the coasts. That is the source of our current pro-American Trump revolution. Michael

Commented Oct 23, 2018 on How we got here at Pro Commerce

1 reply

How we got here

The question I am answering is: ‘How did we get to a stage where one-third of Americans believe in more government, more even distribution of income and wealth; and every large city in the U.S. run by unions?’ I am able to trace the change back to the mid-1960’s when mainstream religions (Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal) became Leftwing... Continue reading

Posted Oct 20, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Where we are 2018 August

It is clear to me that I am no longer a Republican. I have been a Republican since I was president of the San Francisco Young Republicans in 1964. I have worked in one presidential campaign, one gubernatorial campaign and one assembly campaign; all for Republicans. I was a campaign management trainer for the Party. Trump has been a disrupter... Continue reading

Posted Aug 28, 2018 at Pro Commerce

3

Blind ideology about minimum wage

This blog was hard to write. The subject makes me mad. When I talk to the swarm of San Francisco Lefties around me, I find that they refuse to look at an abundance of national data (1)(2)(3) collected regularly for 50 years that explains clearly the effect of a rising minimum wage. For a retailer, doing business in America, the... Continue reading

Posted Aug 13, 2018 at Pro Commerce

2

Glide and Cecil Williams

Glide is in the news these days and I have a unique vantage point. Glide is Glide Memorial United Methodist Church of San Francisco with its most famous minister, Cecil Williams and his wife Jan Mirikitani. Cecil and Jan are in a head butting fight with the Bishop of the United Methodist California-Nevada Annual Conference, Minerva Carcaño. The history: Three... Continue reading

Posted Jul 30, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Darwin observed in commerce

The Darwinian model of random variation with selective application of survival, works fairly well in commerce. If we look at a shopping street with large buildings that have offices in them, we will see a steady change over time as the foot traffic changes, as the demographics change and as tastes replace one type of business with another. Technological change... Continue reading

Posted Jul 16, 2018 at Pro Commerce

1

Wrong word: capitalism

When I look around me at the triumphal world, I don’t see ‘capitalism’. It is not just the wrong word, it is the wrong imagery for the world I see. I’m not a Marxist. The world I see is not shaped by Marx’s ideas of class warfare and proletarian rebellion. Marx and his followers see a world where the owners... Continue reading

Posted Jul 9, 2018 at Pro Commerce

3

Am I being mean?

In 1896 Adolph Ochs bought The New York Times for $75,000 of borrowed money. Circulation was below 25,000. In 1935 Ochs died and his daughter, Iphigene’s, husband Arthur Sulzberger became the publisher. It is well known that both Ochs and Sulzberger, both Jews, considered themselves the elite of New York City. They ardently sought to be included in ‘respectable’ New... Continue reading

Posted Jul 2, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Good things to do for your city

I’ve taken an unusual tack. I assume that all the Lefties that surround me and promote white privilege are people of good will with a tired 170 year old ideology that hates commerce and lives in a zero sum world of class hatred. They don't have anything better. No ideas. What they need is a clear path to a pro... Continue reading

Posted Jun 25, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Josh, I used several census tables. None of them actually make sense when I've gone back and checked them. Somewhere between 100K and 300k women report rape or sexual assault to the police. There are 80 million women in the U.S. over 14. That is about 1, one, per 100k. pretty small number.

Commented Jun 20, 2018 on Women and rape #metoo at Pro Commerce

1 reply

Not a Conservative or Progressive

The overwhelming qualities that dominate the categories of conservative and progressive are ones I don’t adhere to or frankly detest. I am a pure pro-commerce person which is incompatible with both. Commerce, has its conservative component. The category of trade is very conservative. It thrives in a stable world with stable horizons, but is capable of doing well in anarchic... Continue reading

Posted Jun 18, 2018 at Pro Commerce

1

Women and rape #metoo

There is a reason the judicial system doesn't pay attention to women who have been raped. We are in the clutches of an hysteria about women and sex called the #metoo movement. It is in some ways connected to rape but the connection is tenuous. In most public cases, of which there have been nearly 50, as I write this... Continue reading

Posted Jun 11, 2018 at Pro Commerce

3

I have found smell to be the most powerful sense that registers in my memory. When I walked to middle school in San Francisco, in the Richmond District, more than half a century ago, I passed a wall of shrubs. On mornings when the fog was heavy, about ten days a year during school, the wall of shrubs had a... Continue reading

Posted May 30, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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My book gets reviewed

Everyone appears to have an internal dialog. Many mistake this for consciousness; others have a range of explanations. Including paranoid ‘voices’, superego, devil, god and stern parent. My internal voice is benign, even friendly, most of the time. I often think of my internal voice as a guardian angel. Most recently my guardian angel has played an ironic joke on... Continue reading

Posted May 28, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Damit I was right

The Wall Street Journal of May 12th had two articles that made me sad. Sad because I am getting old and my importance as a thinker and as a writer about commerce is so little appreciated. The first article is about the cause of the 2008 financial crash. The article is about Gary Gorton, currently a finance professor at the... Continue reading

Posted May 21, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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You clearly understand the issue. Sure, a greenhouse farm would be a business if the product had a pre-arranged buyer, like flowers, pot or some large package buyer. Animals would have to have the same conditions such as veal, chicken parts or foie gras.

Commented May 20, 2018 on Was President Donald Trump a businessman? at Pro Commerce

1 reply

Hatred of Trump golfing

It is hard for most Lefties to see how virulent the hatred of Trump is. And how it leads to the vicious lying and distortions the press reports about him. I have the most visible and blatant case for my readers. It makes me angry to see such evil and blatant lying in a major American newspaper. This horrible example... Continue reading

Posted May 16, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Was President Donald Trump a businessman?

My coauthor, Salli Rasberry, asked me that question. She knew I had a unique opinion based on working with over 2,000 businesses over 45 years. There are several types of people who appear to be business people but aren't. The one that I first understood was not a business person is a farmer. Try being a business consultant when hired... Continue reading

Posted May 10, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Japan in Spring of 2018

I have been visiting Japan every year since 1971. For many decades I wrote a report to friends but have been negligent for the past few years. Most recently, I stayed in Tokyo with little travel outside. Each year I visit with about 20 friends over a meal. The friends are not a cross section of Tokyo. They include several... Continue reading

Posted Apr 30, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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Latest civil war

I'm in Tokyo where my opinion is greatly respected because I predicted Trump's victory two years ago with certainty. Now I have to explain the current American cultural civil war. I realize that we had a similar earlier cultural civil war (not the slavery-states-rights one) that began in the late 1800's. This last civil war is now referred to as... Continue reading

Posted Apr 15, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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The National Rifle Association used to send me a dozen pieces of mail a month, including a magazine, for my trivial $35 annual membership. I told them to stop wasting money, and they did. Never-the-less, I think the NRA has been a failure recently. Mike Bloom, George Soros and the Obama Team successfully orchestrated a march and full on campaign... Continue reading

Posted Apr 8, 2018 at Pro Commerce

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