Did 9-11 Change Everything for the Business Community

For the business community 9-11 changed everything. In our company, we are in the cleaning business and after 9-11 we saw 62.6% decrease in weekend call ins for washing services at office buildings and a nearly same number of residential call ins. We believe this is partly due to adverse weather but as last years information shows it cannot be more than 20%. Last year that period was down 11.45% and then in the first 3 quarters of 2001 it picked up. We believe because all the phone companies with cellular started offering free weekend minutes so people decided to call us since we are probably on their speed dials for their cell phones. That increase was 4.1 %. Weather last year during this period was light, the previous year lighter and the year before that hectic. This year's winter is a medium plus year for rain and snow days.

Luckily fuel prices are down so heating was not too bad on the residence of this continent. The only thing we can say for sure is fewer people are working weekends, and since the economy is slow they can justify taking the weekend off due to fewer customers everywhere exception Wal*Mart. With fewer people working there is less productivity, less spending and therefore less money to be spent and less calls on weekend. Why? Two fold. One the economy has shrunk in output and speed of transactions. Causing havoc on money flows to all people artificially shrinking money supply to the average participant in the US monetary system. Why? First there is less of a perceived need to work weekends if the TV says we may all be killed by terrorists. In actuality only 3000 people died in terrorist acts of 9-11. That is insignificant as a percentage of population of 300 plus million Americans and Illegal aliens living in the boundaries of our state. Horrible yes, insignificant also yes. This is not to say that we should not protect our people, we definitely should. It is the job of government, our government to do so.

That is in our constitution. But we may not fully be protecting our people if we are terrorizing them ourselves through negative media, scare tactics and other propaganda. Yes we need a strong military, but should we be hurting ourselves and our strong American pride and psyche to do it? No, it is that pride and stick-to-it-ness that built this great nation and we cannot sacrifice it now. So now that Americans have taken off 21 weekends in a row, or at least tried to, it has become habit. Knowing by scientific studies that it takes 21 days to form a habit if it is to stick. So Americans will not go back to work on weekends and our nations productivity is now that of the lesser. So what do we do with our time? Well, if we do not keep the minds and bodies of America busy on something they will take to stupid things, like politics, and supreme sports where people are hurt, killed or die. Boxing, race cars, whatever. They will need to be entertained. If we look at other periods of times, there were gladiators, the Mayans had the great events where one opposing team had to be totally killed to win, we fed Christians to the lions, and there were public executions.

Even in this day that has occurred to keep people entertained. Remember the Taliban and public executions? Of course they got a double whammy because they also used it to manipulate and control. Mike Tison bit some ones ear, Daytona 500 this last weekend wrecked half of the cars. The fans, loved it and can talk about it for the next year. When Dale Earnhardt died the sport increased, like hitting the afterburners on an F-15. Look at it today? If you are not in NASCAR you are not real. Even Kmart had to stay in the race after their bankruptcy. If they take out their race team they are dead for sure. Right now they are only in bankruptcy, no big deal. But if they stop the NASCAR circuit their fans numbering in the 35 million range will never forgive them. The US NAVY needs their own race team, you want the top dogs to sign up for the service? Tell them on the track. It is all about recruitment and for gods sake hire the best drivers. Why not have the F-18s from the Blue Angles fly by every race too. Shows support and also safety to promote tourism to those areas hosting such events. Gets people out of their houses to enjoy stuff too. Controlled chaos sporting events keep people busy and give them something to talk about too. In America we have economic enslavement, that is why everyone was working at redline speed in the last economic boom period, yet really made less money to spend during that time.

With 12-18% of their monies on average going to pay off credit card debt they really did not get ahead. Housing did well due to low down payment requirements for single and multifamily dwellings but really only added to the average families debt. Of course everyone with a job bought several new cars and even more debt. Americas personal income, real income after expenses decreased yet they worked so hard to keep up with the Jones'. We taught Americans that no matter how hard you work, you really do not get anywhere, so why not work less and spend time with your family more since you are so far in debt already and you might be blown up by a terrorist. And how could any American forget that message as it is blaring on the TV set 24/7. TV may have become the escape, but it cannot play good guy and bad guy on the same show. Although they try. So as America gets bored with the TV set but still checks in to see if anything new has developed since their overnight sleep or long day at work plus traffic, they tune in to watched and get caught up in the latest BS and controversy over nothing really. Liberals fighting the conservatives on various issues, which have been going on since the beginning of time. Fighting in the middle east, same amount of time. After all Civilization is a compound word and oxymoron that has not really changed, sure we have better delivery of information about the controversies but it is all the same really. Occasionally a new twist, but in deeper probing really the same. So we have ruled Americans by fear, economic enslavement and a few combinations there of. We did not start the fire, it has been burning since the world has been turning (Billy Joel). So how do we control 300 million people who are now having time to think?

Right now they are stressed and learning to deal with it. Their brains and bodies are depleting vitamins and using up protein. Eventually they will become numb to all of this and start thinking again. They will eventually come to the realization that all this is pure hooey. Question is will this lead them to want to get their cars washed. Yes and no. Yes because they will feel stupid for driving a dirty car since they enjoy driving a clean one. It is that good clean car feeling people like, that is 45% of why they get a car washed. Other reasons of the pie include, respect from fellow man, rationalization that the cars paint job will last, resale value, image control and being able to see out the windows. But alas we cannot continue to run our business by letting the phone ring and if we want to dominate this residential market sector and take it from our competitors since they are not giving it to us of their own free will. We will have to fight for this market share, strategize and eventually as always win it, all of it. What does America need to get back to normal? Well people need to satisfy their innate needs to have control over their destiny and live without all that fear. Fear causes lack of innovation. This is why scientists motivated by force or death of loved ones cannot keep up with free scientists of the West in efforts to build weapons and create innovation. Once the fear is gone they can do just fine.

Reward systems in Germany and Russia worked for this. Hell they gave as many metals of honor as awards to warriors as proclamations of acclaim to managers of their systems, architects and scientists and the like. You get to help with the Nationalistic System and therefore are rewarded and highly regarded by peers. But straight fear will not work. If we continually allow our citizenry to live in fear we will lose to world markets due to lack of substantial innovations. With this fear we eliminate the weakest of the innovation chain, which in total is less than 5% of the population.

So if we take away half of the brilliant minds due to a fear induced brain fart we are left with 2.5% of the innovators. What if half of all we have now was never invented? What type of world would that be? Think about what we cannot live without these days. Imagine, knowing that necessity is the mother of invention, so maybe only 15% of the things we live with that increase quality of life were not invented. Little things, not like a windshield wiper on a car, that would have been invented eventually and we would have it. But other important things, micro devices, caller ID, reflectors on the side of the road to warn drivers of the edge. Carbon Graphite products for sport uses, golf clubs, racket ball, tennis, bicycling, skiing, etc. Bullet proof vests for police men with Kevlar. Special toilet paper that decomposes quickly in water for help with sewer treatment plants. Voice Activated software, fax machines. Bar coding equipment, etc. Think about how these small things changed our lives.

Only a few inventions, but changed our lives forever. Can you do without a fax machine? Remote control for your TV? Think. But first clear your mind of fear. We have nothing to fear except that which fear causes. It is the cause of prejudice. It causes hate, aggression, it causes problems. It is innate, we cannot stop it, except with drugs which cause side affects. Some fear is good, such as to keep people in religion so they try to love thy neighbor for fear of god or a hell type situation, respect laws because of fear of punishment. But fear of unknown is fear of the inevitable, it is fear of change and not real like things like fear of heights. We need to admit there is fear and reduce the unnecessary fears caused by media that have caused incorrect behavior that contradicts our system of trade and values in America. Look at the movies we have today at the box office. John Q by Denzel Washington in an HMO setting, something we all hate and a fear to great like that of losing a child, many of us would rather die ourselves. Denzel is able to overcome the situation and save his child. Take control. Of course right now all Americans feel like we have no control at all. We are counting on the government to protect us, yet it is the same government who caused the terrorist acts. Not in a sense of actually doing the deed of course, but in not defending us against and known threat.

Their number one job was to protect us and they failed and now all people of this country are living in fear. This is why Rocky was such a smash originally. Look at Bruce Willis' new movie where he over comes the Germans in the war prison camp. What irony, when all Americans feel trapped. Perfect timing to sell out at the box office. Fear causes rage. Denzel Washington solves his personal and life threatening problem, he is bent on rage, the same rage that resides in all of Americans over this terrorist act. The are mad, even though some say they are Christians and are told not to be so angry that god will judge. Yet they all know they are mad as hell and bent on rage and they want revenge even though they cannot say it politically. Yet many will say it openly and every one is feeling it. So where do we place all these energies we have? Well we cannot place it at the work, because no one wants to work extra. We have noticed fewer and fewer calls to Corporate from other businesses on Mondays and Fridays. Why? Because people are thinking weekend sooner on Thursdays and they call a lot on Thursdays because in their minds everything needs to get done before the weekend. So maybe we should make Fridays a weekend too since fewer people are working and no one ever calls you back and everything is put off until Monday but of course no one really mentally starts work to any large degree until Tuesday. So we now have complete productivity on Tuesday to Thursday except at 10 minutes to 5 pm.

Everyone is already mentally in their car and on their way home. Good luck finding any real service at 10 minutes to closing anymore, not since 9-11. They say there are more important things in life like family. Oh really that is a switch. Did not use to be that way before 9-11. What changed? 3000 people died. That is not significant in real numbers only in the overblown media. Don't get me wrong the attack was a wake up call. But who kept hitting the snooze button, nothing has changed, it always has been that way, we just needed to open our eyes. We paid countless earnings in taxes for protection, the only real need of government, they took the money many times by force, yet failed to deliver. Safety is our concern especially from foreign threats. We know things change and that innovation also has a price for instance the textile business and the looms, telephone operators with the automatic-switching units. Globalitization is changing things.

Many jobs are no longer needed anymore. We need to get use to that. These people out of work are not needed so if their answer to the question is to work less and spend time with family then that is good. A good thing in deed, better kids learning more from parents and thus not destined to make all the mistakes that their parents did, sure they will still have to repeat many of them because that is just a part of growing up, but with trust back in to the family and close ties we are liable to see many kids learning lessons better without the black listing that occurs from things like drug abuse, drunk driving or teenage pregnancy which hampers young peoples future due to a one time error in judgment or time period in their short lives. It also makes them a little more responsible a little earlier. Well what will the dads do with more time? Mentor kids better, teach them important things, volunteer to coach and or in someway get involved. Society has always had a problem of what to do with their males. Lots of testosterone flowing there. Lots of energy needing to be harvested. Perhaps the old playing catch in the yard, little league, soccer or Pop Warner Football.

Teaching sportsmanship and working hard toward a goal. Perhaps for those not physically endowed to a large degree can go after other goals. We worship the spelling bee contestant who can spell words we never heard of. What about the young computer geniuses, musicians, and astronauts? We do need a mentoring program as the President said. The idea of 4000 selfless hours spreading unity in the world is also to be commended. The Morman church does this with young males going abroad on missions. Also to be noted is their Morman family nights and strong family unity similar to most all Hispanic families. If people are wanting to work less and we now need less workers, then we need to help people occupy their time. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can..- .. If we enlist all Americans to build for tomorrow rather than condemn that which is past and we cannot change, then we can make hay our of this terrible situation and fix what we have broken due to our misunderstanding of what people need and want and the fear we have blown out of proportion. If people want more family time, great, then do it with quality and a goal in mind. As long as everyone is brain dead still after 9-11, perhaps we should outline a list and a plan for them to get started on. With such a high Presidential approval rating he should be the one to outline the plan and the First lady to emphasize it on radio.

He should do this now to minimize the nuclear fallout that the liberals are after over this Enron issue. They are on the war path to hurt the administration so they can elect more of their own. Politics need to be set aside and we need to look at America now, and move this thing in the right direction. It is the social changes which will help move the economy to a norm. At the same time we reduce the fear and reward innovation in our society. For the past ten years we have condemned it. We also need to allow funding for Craig McCaws new satellite idea. We learned a lot from iridium and Motorola's disaster. We can do it right this time and the new technology will unite the world and allow more use of the Internet and destroy repression in countries who enslave people and attack human rights. Communication opened to the world and all participants will make it nearly impossible for evil regimes to reign in foreign lands. You see we have all the necessary tools to use all we have to fix the world and simultaneously fix us here at home. The new technology will provide opportunity. With the Enron debacle there will be less available funding for new innovations at a time when we have less brain power being used for such and at a time when we and the world needs it the most. Imagine opening the Internet to anyone on the planet at any time and anyplace?

The TV set and radio helped break down barriers to allow people human rights. Just like the printing press and newspapers here alerted people of the need to free our selves and make a stand. Think about the works of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and others, which lead us to make a stand and create the greatest nation in human history. It is information that frees the world. We should remember that if we limit information to ourselves and our people we limit the future and we limit the innovation we will need to take this country and our species to the next level./ What a great time to be alive. We need to fix a few things here as these trends confront themselves. Look around, there is opportunity in Chaos, and we can harvest it, we should start now.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs