Sun Tzu teaches that we should only expand when we have an excess of resources. Yet, expansion can be addicting. A good example is Donald Trump, one of the promotional geniuses of our era, but a man who should have stuck to real estate investment where value derives largely from image. His mistake was using the type of debt that works in real estate to finance the purchase of casinos when he clearly doesn't know how to make money in the casino business.
When I started this blog, I thought one major focus would be on business, since that is really more my interest than politics. For example, this long-going take-over battle between Oracle and Peoplesoft is exactly why Sun Tzu warns against long campaigns. While this is going on, Oracle's main competitors (IBM, Microsoft) and Peoplesoft's main competitor (SAS) can win sales based upon the uncertainty of the takeover bid.
Sun Tzu teaches the persistence is a critical part of competitive success. Already, as we can see in this report, Kerry is doing a much better job than Gore in not surrendering his position in the party. He never developed a winning position for the presidency, but he realizes that as the nominee, he has a position in the party that he can build on.
Today's job report
is being reported
as very negative for President Bush, but--as Sun Tzu teaches--it is not the
trends themselves, but how they are leveraged that matters. Given that we
expect the President to campaign on a strong
ownership theme, this job report may actually be strategic for the president making his case about private ownership.
I received
this mail from someone who firmly believes that the US government in responsible for every problem in the world because it is a tool
of the "corporate state." One of the chief claims is that our government
created every homicidal dictator in the world. I wrote a long response but the
email that the person used doesn't work, so I post my
response here.
The Art of War is a paean to progress. It extols the
idea that, no matter what our current position, we can improve it continuously
if we act strategically. Some object to progress because it widens the
gap
between rich and poor. But according to Sun Tzu's philosophy, the wider the gap between
rich and poor, the better! The only way to eliminate that gap is to eliminate
progress. That gap measures progress.