It’s a New Year, and who was Frances Hesselbein?

Jan 15

It’s a New Year!

So what happened over the last two weeks? Here is but a small sample…

GDP – the nation’s total output, kind of like your gross income on your tax return – increased a higher than expected 3.2% for the third quarter.

Oh, and the GDP for Q2 was revised up to a negative 0.6%, so there was a recession in 2022 (defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth).
At any rate, the strong GDP for Q3 is normally solid good news. But in this topsy-turvy time, good news is bad and bad news is good – economically of course.
The higher GDP and the lower-than-expected unemployment claims mean the economy is still smoking along, in spite of the best efforts of the Fed to cool it down.
So, your loan interest rates will continue to go up and the stock market will continue to drag along.

The pasty, pudgy FTX ex-CEO finally ditched his t-shirts and cargo shorts for a suit. Oh, NOW he wants to make a good impression… for the judge.

He did get bail of $250,000,000 and he posted it even after losing $8,000,000,000… somewhere. But he did find enough money to post bail.

Just so everyone is clear, when a judge sets bail, you have to come up with 10% of the bail amount. In this case, this disgusting individual had to come up with $25,000,000. And he did, or someone did.

He is confined to his house. Oh, the horrors of it all! He should be confined to a house with dial-up internet and no cell signal. That’ll drive you insane.

Yes, yes, it’s for wonderful programs but that is another $1.7 trillion – trillion – that is funded by government debt.

In other words, we are flooding the economy with more money just when we are trying to slow down inflation.

And there technically was a Santa Clause rally. For the last week of the year, the market was up 0.8%. But…

For the month of December, the S&P 500 was down 5.7% and for the year, the S&P was down 19.95%. The worst year since 2008.
Yeesh. Sounds like a recession for 2023 to me. Yes, I know we have to wait for two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. Sounds like a double-dip; once in 2022 and once in 2023.

The California Budget – Just a word or two, if I may…

In 2014, the entire state budget was $100 billion with a population of 38.5 million.
In 2023, that budget is now $213 billion with a population of 39.2 million people (and falling).

The population increased by 1.8% but the budget increased by 113%.
Hmmm. I’m not feeling I got double my money’s worth in the last 9 years. Are you?

Solution? A phone call or letter to a state legislator? Well, it might be worth the dime or postage stamp. I expect the voicemail will be full and you’ll get a letter back telling you that you forgot to enclose your contribution to their campaign.

Who was Frances Hesselbein?

By that time, membership in the organization had fallen for 8 consecutive years.
Only 5% of the members were minorities and the organization was in danger of losing relevance.

She sought input from all levels and read all of Peter Drucker’s work (Drucker is a legend in the management world).
One of her main admirers in the business world was Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford.
Her innovations included bringing in younger members and establishing the rank of Daisies for those girls in kindergarten and first grade.
She created merit badges like Computer Fun and Math Whiz and put more emphasis on preparing girls for careers rather than housework.
Not surprisingly, membership started to go back up.
She retired from The Girl Scouts in 1990, and died last month at the age of 107.
My wife and my daughters benefitted from her innovations in the Scouts and are better women for it; my wife was also a Girl Scout Leader and for the record, she’d be an awesome CEO.
One of Mrs. Hesselbein’s quotes was “Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do”.

And that will be our quote of the week.

All the best for 2023!

CPI, California, Fraud and The Last Line