Opinion

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The Business Times Contributors THE BUSINESS TIMES February 17-MJANUARYarch 9, 2022 15-28, 2015 Opinion Opinion Business BriefsA new year affords Business Peoplea new opportunity to meet local needs Almanac

A new year almost always brings an opportunity for a fresh start and renewed ambition to do things better.

In business, that usually boils down to providing customers better products and services faster and at lower cost than competitors. Part of the process must include listening to customers to determine what they actually need and then meeting that need. After all, it does little good to offer the latest and greatest if nobody actually wants what you’re selling.

Just like the businesses that belong to the group, the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce invariably starts out the new year with a reassessment of the services and resources it provides and how well they match with members needs. Jeff Franklin, the new chairman of the chamber board of directors, personifies this approach in describing what he considers his role for the coming year: listen to members, determine their needs and then meet those needs. It’s a role with which Franklin is familiar as market president of Bank of Colorado.

The process will take on a more structured approach in what the chamber plans as the resumption of a program aptly called Listening to Business. Under the program, business owners participate in in-depth interviews to identify barriers to growth and other problems they encounter.

The new year offers a good time to join the proverbial club.

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Is there additional news coverage that would help keep you informed about local business developments? Are there features that would be interesting or useful? Is there advice that would make your jobs a little easier?

It’s equally important to ask what you don’t need. With limited time to produce content and limited space in which to publish it, would time and space be better devoted to something else?

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The Grand Valley Business Times, a subsidiary of Hall Media Group LLC, is published twice monthly and distributed throughout Grand Junction, Fruita and Palisade. Advertising rates and deadlines are available upon request. Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, editor, staff or advertisers.

Copyright © 2015 — All rights reserved.

It’s that time of year when resolutions and prognostications abound. My favorite saying applied to New Year’s resolutions is in saying they’re basically a bunch of promises to break the first week of January. And while I won’t predict a whole lot, I can pretty much accurately nail a few things that without question will make the news. You will see these are pretty, well, predictable: ■ Prediction one: There will be some sort of weather event, natural disaster or heinous occurrence where someone will be interviewed and say the following: “I’ve never seen anything like that in my lifetime.” It’s as if this person is a required attendee at every news reporting event. While I understand most people’s perspective can indeed be limited by, or contained within, their own personal experiences, it is too much to ask to consult some historical perspective before saying such a thing? Yes, this response can apply to some events. But when it comes to weather and natural disasters, I’m pretty sure this is simply history repeating itself. Same as it has for millions and millions of years. More important, the planet made it! What didn’t were certain species. How’s that for perspective? ■ Prediction two: When it comes to a crime or something that occurs between humans, the other required attendee at all news reporting events is the person who says this: “They we’re just the nicest people, and in no way did I see something like this coming.” Exactly. No one does most of the time when it comes to neighbors and acquaintances. People should be surprised at what goes on from time to time in their neighborhoods, towns and with people they know because people are good. And for the times that they shouldn’t be shocked — like with politicians, repeat offenders and terrorists — where’s the interview that says, “This doesn’t surprise me in the least.” ■ Prediction three: Something good will happen economically, and the government will take credit for it. The most recent example is gas prices, where people ask me why I won’t credit the president for low gas prices. My answer is simple: Government never makes the price of something go down and simply takes credit for good news. Gas pricing is subject to many global factors. Now there are government answers to addressing some of them to keep prices stable for Americans, but our government has none of them in place. The only things it has in place in the

Bold predictions for 2015 more like not-so-bold repeats long run always hurt consumers. Another fact is that unemployment reaches a certain level based on the economy. And while the government might brag the number is low, it’s more than likely the government did something to cause that number being low — and not in a good way. Conversely, when business picks up, it’s because the people who need to buy widgets who were not buying widgets because the economy was contracting due to natural (or unnatural, government caused) reasons, decided we better buy some widgets. The government had nothing to do with this. ■ Prediction four: In keeping with things the government does, I predict the government will manipulate the numbers to make the claim the economy is getting better because of how hard it is working to help all of us “working Americans.” Now Craig Hall you might say, “Craig, you always say this about President Obama because you don’t like him.” You’re right in a sense. I don’t know the man, but what I know of him and his thinking, I don’t like it or him one iota. Before you go off, however, I didn’t like President Bush and his bailouts, stimulus and his abandoning the free market to save the free market. And I don’t know him either. What the government does, and the only thing it can do, is hurt the economy. Unless it does nothing or put criminals in jail instead of partnering with them, nothing the government does will help. Always look at it this way, whatever the government says it is doing, whatever the name of the law it is passing, or whatever the name or goal of the bureaucracy it is presenting to the people, expect the polar opposite to occur. I guess what I’m saying is that perhaps it’s time to get out of our own perspective. There’s plenty of history books and historical research out there to begin to understand that all of this has happened before. And it will again, whether the topic is people or government. The best recommendation is to find some books or try that whole Google thing. There’s a lot of information on the Great Depression. The truth is it wasn’t even a good one until the government got involved. There’s also plenty of research on the medieval warm period when the planet was much warmer than today with a whole lot less people (and warmer well before man was here at all). And yep, people have been killing other surprised people since history was first written. Maybe some research will help stop all of these trends. Otherwise, we’ll be saying we’ve never seen anything like it in our lives. And not in a good way. Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 Copyright © 2022 — All rights reserved. or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com. F ✦

If there’s a set of two-word, federal and state governing ways of doing business, it should be these two in the headline for this column.

In fact, one of these has become the only allowed way government now controls the confiscation and waste of our hard-earned dollars. The other is becoming the way government controls our lives.

A limited government that doesn’t infringe on the God-given rights of free peoples is the singular ideal behind the two most ignored documents in the history of our nation: the Constitution of the United States of America and its more important counterpart, the Declaration of Independence. Government resorts to emergency powers and continuing resolutions when people rise up and say, “You have no legal authority to do that.” Government has done so on spending for decades and time and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And people should be rising up and fighting back locally and at the state and federal levels. While more than a few of us are fighting, most of the nation has taken the action for which America increasingly has been become known: outsourcing. This time to truckers in Canada. As expected, the prime minister of Canada has pushed back with emergency powers.

The same as every commissioner, governor, health department, school board and president in the good ol’ US of A. That’s because once governments find something that works — something the people tire of pushing back against — in taking more control and increasing power and wealth, they seldom get rid of it. It’s why people no longer demand a balanced budget from Congress. We’ve accepted continuing resolutions that allow every member of Congress to break the law several times a year when it comes to pretty much everything the government does. Don’t think it’s breaking the law? Try the same scam on your bank, investors or stockholders. Hell, try it with the IRS and see where you end up. I can assure you it won’t be chairing a select committee in Congress.

So now that you have a better understanding of how Congress gets away with overspending and creating unconstitutional government bureaucracies that overspend, expand power and make us criminals without knowing it, let’s get back to the Mother Truckers and the Little Dictator Up North.

For a point of reference on the abuse of emergency powers, I’ll simply see if you can guess who said this related to a YEAR LONG farmer’s strike in India in 2020.

Who doesn’t want The continuing resolution known as emergency powers to be a millionaire? “Entertaining the use of force to disperse or contain legal protests is wrong ... . Canada will always be there to defend the right of

Who wants to be a millionaire? peaceful protest.” Now if the name of the

That’s both the name of a television game show and what’s got to rank as one country being in the quote still has you of the most ironic rhetorical questions ever posed. While there are perhaps a few guessing, you probably support the habitualpeople who’d answer “No thanks. I’m good.” I’m willing to bet — $1 million in costume-which-shall-not-be-named-wearing fact — the vast majority of people would respond “Heck yeah.” Or something like “hoser” from the Great White North. that. How else to explain the large number of people who buy lottery tickets even Yes, Canadian Prime Minister Justin though, statistically speaking, they’re far more likely to get struck by lightning. Trudeau said it. Trudeau went on to state I bring this up for two reasons. how important it was for Indian leaders First: I suspect most business owners and managers, to talk with protesters, stressed his worry along with nearly everyone else who works for a paycheck, about the families and friends of the dreams of becoming a millionaire. Money isn’t the only farmers and called the situation “very motivation for entrepreneurs, managers and employees, of course. It likely doesn’t top a top 10 list. But there’s no Craig Hall concerning.” Yet, when the same thing happens in Ottawa, he responds with denying money constitutes a measure of success. emergency powers— which can go as far Second: It gives me a good excuse to use the interesting as using the military to disperse protesters. information I receive nearly every day by email, but can’t This is beyond hypocrisy. It’s more like otherwise publish in the Business Times or post on the website. megalomania. And it’s the kind of power Phil Castle More specifically, I received a news release about a question posed by the Solitaire.com online gaming site asking what for which too many in governments across the world lust. It’s why our union-loving Americans thought they’d need to live a millionaire lifestyle. President Joe Biden supports Trudeau

As it turned out, it’s much more than $1 million. Not surprising given the instead of the working men and women different costs of living, the answers varied depending on who you asked and of Canada. Frankly, the truckers shouldn’t where they lived. Among those in California who answered the question, the have needed to shut down the Ambassador average came to nearly $6.3 million. Those in Colorado said they could get Bridge connecting Detroit, Mich., and by with less — an average of about $4.8 million. For those keeping score, the Windsor, Ontario. Biden should have done nationwide average was almost $5.5 million. it in the name of freedom — and the citizens

How do you accumulate that kind of money? The answers to some more of Canada and the United States — in telling questions revealed that 26 percent of those who responded thought their best Trudeau he’s out of line. But ol’ Sheriff Joe prospects of becoming millionaires were found in the technology sector. That was didn’t do that. We must ask why. followed by 18 percent in renewable energy, 13 percent in real estate, 11 percent A long time ago, there was a horrible in health care and 10 percent in finance. movie titled “The Betsy.” It was about a

Now, who wants to be a billionaire? OK How long do you think it will take? family owned auto manufacturer and a

A study conducted by OLBG, which operates an online betting guide, found patriarch trying to create a company saving it takes on average 20 years to earn $1 billion. model (looked like a Pinto) named after a

Of course, some people zipped past that milestone far more quickly. And that’s beloved progeny (Betsy, not Edsel). For where the notion developed of the technology industry offering the best path to those who need clues again, let’s just call wealth. The top seven billionaires to make their money the quickest work in the tech it “Fords” — like we all did back home. sector. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, spent only four years to earn Regardless, the union workers called a $1 billion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took six. As did Google founders Larry strike on “Fords” and shut it down. The Page and Sergey Brin. pathetic son of the patriarch kept telling his

I doubt I’m alone in my firm belief money doesn’t buy happiness. And most of dad, “GM and Chrysler are expecting me the entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed over the years are more motivated by other factors. to hold the line.” The old man’s response

Still, who wouldn’t want to be a millionaire? was, “Of course they are, you’re shut down and they’re building and selling cars.” His Phil Castle is editor of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or advice was to negotiate and let GM and phil@thebusinesstimes.com. Chrysler deal with their own problems. F I see this same thing playing out in Canada. Trudeau — for myriad wrong reasons, including getting attention from serious world players, which he is not — is holding the line. That could cost Canada its freedom. Then tyrants across the globe can consolidate power and ignore the pleas of their citizens. Then again, in their lust for power, attention and a place in history, all these folks don’t want to build cars for the people. They just want to own the company. And they’ll adopt whatever works. Canada is the test program. Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.