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Recent events (MANY recent events) have led me to wonder something… why do we set our sights low? Let me break this down a little bit.

THE BACKGROUND:

For years now I have been hearing about how sad ‘my generation’ is. “They have a poor work ethic”, “they are not loyal”, “they think they are entitled to everything”, “they have no respect for private information”, and I could go on. Yet everyone is my ‘MySpace’ generation seems frustrated too. My parents’ generation was going change things right (at least that was what they tried to tell everyone in the 60s)… no more wars, stick it to the man, etc. but they did nothing really (no offense). We still have wars, we still have preventable disease, our environment has gotten worse, we still have corporate greed, and on, and on, and on.

THE FOREGROUND:

I feel like I fight this in Corporate America now every day. Worse, I feel like I am going to have to get really aggressive before I get anywhere. In the last few years I sat and watched as Ernst & Young played “zero-sum games” with our competitors (we offered a crappy, low-value suite of services and made up for it through larger “growth” pushes and cutting prices) leading me to swear I would not engage in zero-sum games with competitors ever again. Yet, where I find myself right now in our new business trying to “make our name in the market” is doing exactly the same thing… undercutting price, really “selling”, etc.

THE POINT:

Why the hell does all of this continue to progress in this manner? Let me explain why I think it does… all the generations ahead of mine (and when I say ahead of mine, I literally mean anyone older than 25… which is funny because I am 26) aren’t ready to accelerate into the future, no offense. My generation isn’t lazy or disrespecting of company privacy or any of the rest…. We are all just ready to work TOGETHER to accelerate business and economies into the future. Instead of me at E&Y hiding things from “my competitor” at PWC; my college buddy who works at PWC and I are connected on LinkedIn and Facebook and are sharing experiences to lead to smarter conclusions and decisions thus making BOTH of our organizations better.

BUT THE OLD GUYS DON’T GET IT! Everyone older than me is just sure we have to “compete” and treat other firms like they are from some other planet. Here is the deal. I can’t help but wonder why Generation X and The Baby Boomers are often so anti-innovation. When certain kinds of services and products are becoming commoditized and starting to look like a zero-sum game, instead of increasing sales efforts and cutting prices… why don’t we innovate, grab the business/industry by the balls, and turn it on its head? And if we can’t, realize that business changed, what we do is not viable, and learn to do something else.

So, I am currently wondering why our team is fighting this crazy trend of getting a piece of commoditized work.

QUESTION: Why do we care about it? ANSWER: Not sure, guess because we have to start somewhere.

QUESTION: Are big companies actually better or more important clients than very small ones? ANSWER: Not sure again, yet we FIGHT for work at Denver’s big, public companies to really make no more money on an hourly basis than we do when we provide really great services to very small “Loveland-type” (for those that don’t know me - small, home-owned type) businesses. The reason is because we deliver a borderline commodity service to very big companies, yet we offer a borderline transformational service to very small companies.

QUESTION: When we cut prices and increase sales are we really putting the customer at the center of our business? ANSWER: I don’t think so. If a customer is really pushing to reduce prices, shouldn’t we help them get what they want? It seems like the thing to do is totally change approach and build the service specifically around cutting price… don’t just cut margin, automate, innovate, and get ahead of the market.

WHAT NEXT:

I’m going to work. Time to put the customer at the center of what we do and rethink our strategy on a few things. Time to abandon this idea of playing defense with pricing and play some serious offense. I think it is so easy to fall into thinking you can’t do certain things but you can. That’s what being an entrepreneur is all about. Instead of selling a service that used to cost $125,000 for $100,000 with a smaller margin (say $10,000) in order to meet the customer in the middle on their desire to reduce costs, why not think about how to do it smarter with software and automation, build the product to do it, and sell it for $50,000 with a $25,000 margin? The zero-sum game ends, customer and provider win, and the economy benefits from innovative thinking. BUT… you have to set your sights higher to accomplish that. Hat is the quote that comes to mind… “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you will land among the stars”. So come on old guys, lets set our sights higher and change business forever.

Please watch…

After is your ability to buy that house with a theater room still seem like the top priority in life? Do you think that if there only 100 of us, the 33 Christians would be fighting with the 18 Muslims? Or could we maybe stop fighting long enough to try and help out those 53 that live on less than $2 a day.

All of this business about the business of “high-finance” lately has turned my stomach. I mean REALLY turned my stomach. Lets review the VERY short version of the events that have led to the current “credit crisis” and the ensuing pain felt by America’s financial institutions.

1. The American population develops a serious spending problem but no one seems to notice
2. “Bankers” and America’s “financial experts” develop sophisticated financial instruments to make traditional more liquid
3. America, ignorantly, buys into the “financial experts” sales pitch and begins holding securitized loans in our financial portfolios
4. Bankers begin making more and more loans to less and less qualified people
5. “Everyday Americans” begin taking on more and more ridiculous loans because the bankers and “financial experts” told them they could afford it.
6. America realizes they couldn’t afford it, no matter what the banker/expert had said.
7. America begins defaulting on the loans.
8. Bankers begin suffering because all of their loans are defaulting.
9. Banks begin going out of business (e.g. Bear Stearns).
10. Uncle Sam decides it is time to bail the whole thing out.

Of all the crap I rant about in this little corner of the internet, this is bothering me the most right now. The government… especially the supposed “small government, free market” supporting Republican Party, is all a-buzz about how can we save America from the credit crisis. There is talk of bailing out the banks, saving people’s homes, and all the rest and it is infuriating to me.

Let me see if I can remain calm long enough to explain. America was founded on an idea of freedom and personal responsibility. In a free market, each individual is free to figure out how to prosper and is not (supposed to be) protected from failing.

In 2002, as nothing but a really stupid college kid and a simple retail shop owner, my own father and I discussed how crazy all the borrowing and lending was and how the whole thing was destined to collapse. We understood it, we stayed out of it, and we are not suffering from it. Big self pat-on-the-back for us I guess.

But this is the problem… now the whole thing has collapsed. Any idiot could have seen this coming except for the “financial experts” and all those people aimlessly signing their name on the bottom line apparently. Sorry to alienate all you “normal people” out there who fell for this scam, but I’m sorry, that is what happened you. You fell for a scam, and when you fall for a scam, you get burned. For you scam artists (or “financial experts” as previously named), you deserve the crash. You suck, I’m glad you’re going out of business. Wait, did I sound like a jerk just now? Let me see if I can say it better. You totally suck, and I actually draw significant pleasure from watching your businesses come crashing down (hmmm… still sound like a jerk but so it goes I guess). Basically, I was not involved and don’t deserve to suffer in the aftermath.

And that is what the free market is all about, rewarding those who played well and punishing those who played poorly. It is a harsh reality but history irrefutably proves that it is under this system we as the human race move forward the fastest.

The problem is that in the current situation, the government supported the run-up and is now looking to help with the bail-out. That is called socialism and it is MADNESS. By bailing out the banks and bailing out people with bad mortgages, the government is effectively using my money (tax money… actually debt in my name because they have NO money) to excuse the actions of people I did better than in the free market.

At the end of the day, these government bail-out actions do exactly one thing… make it known that if a company, or industry, or individual acts poorly, the government is there to fix it for them. The saddest part is that we have a political system that is supposed to be divided by party to create descent over these actions (e.g. this should be, at a minimum, protested by the Republican Party). Problem is that the party who is supposed to be pissed is totally spineless, so there is no descent/debate on this issue. They seem to be happy when corporations profit through greed on one side, but want to turn around and bail out those same people that were greedy when the free market corrects and punishes them for their greed (which it always does). Shame on you Republicans, please consider growing a backbone sometime this millennium.

So here it is again, evidence that all I want is government to get the hell out of the way and clear indication that the only political party I could even maybe legitimately associate myself with is the Libertarian Party. I am sorry the Republican Party has been so corrupted from what it is supposed to stand for. I hope its members will wake up soon and take it back.

What I want is this… let the lenders that made stupid loans sink. Let people who took on stupid loans lose them and learn a valuable lesson. Then the market will correct this flaw and we can all move onto further prosperity. The sad alternative of government interfering to “fix” this for short term satisfaction will lead to continued suffering.

I don’t know where Glenn Beck was a few months ago when we needed him but it looks like he swinging our way (check out the video). At any rate, I am very nervous about our economic system… a shimmer of hope exists for the American monetary super power, but the outlook grim. I hope the internet generation has what it takes to save us.