A Big Cigar In A Young Face

Experts Kill Me. Economic Experts, That Is. Corporations, Foundations, Publications And Governments Pay Them By The Bucketful, And They Fill Buckets With Forecasts That Change More Frequently Than White-collar, Workers Do Shirts. What Lies Ahead Is The Usual Title. What Lies Would Often Be More Appropriate. If Women's Hemlines Changed As Rapidly As An Economist's Forecasts, The Fashion People And The Textile Industry Would Be More Profitable Than Any Other. In Fact, If All The Country's Economists Were Laid End To End, They Still Wouldn't Reach A Conclusion.

All Too Often We Say Of A Man Doing A Good Job That He Is Indispensable. A Flattering Canard, As So Many Disillusioned And Retired And Fired Have Discovered When The World Seems To Keep On Turning Without Them. In Business, A Man Can Come Nearest To Indispensability By Being Dispensable In His Current Job. How Can A Man Move Up To New Responsibilities If He Is The Only One Able To Handle His Present Tasks? It Matters Not How Small Or Large The Job You Now Have, If You Have Trained No One To Do It As Well, You're Not Available; You've Made Your Promotion Difficult If Not Impossible.

Why, Just A Couple Of Economic Seasons Ago, Was Idle Cash Considered An Indication Of Bad Management Or Lazy Management? Because It Meant That Management Didn't Have This Money Out At Work ... Now Look. Presto! A New Fashion! Cash Is Back In! Denigrating Liquidity Has Dropped Quicker Than Hemlines. A Management Is Now Saluted If It Has Some Cash, Some Liquidity, Doesn't Have To Go To The Money Market At Huge Interest Rates To Get The Wherewithal To Keep Going And Growing. Along With Ben Franklin, My Father And Your Father Would Understand And Applaud This New Economic Fashion.

It Is A Damned Sight Easier To Start Wars Than To End Them. This Truth Has Been Stated For As Long And As Often As It Has Been Ignored. High Time And Thank God, We Are At Least Moving Toward De-escalation In Vietnam. The Road To Extrication Will Be Long, Painful, Bitter. But It Must Be Trod. We Are So Bogged Down In Vietnam That We Cannot Respond Effectively Anywhere Else In The World To A Military Power Play Except Through Atomic Bombardment.

Venture Nothing, And Life Is Less Than It Should Be.