Americans readily accept two opposing ideas about the first Thanksgiving — one bright and highly idealized, the other gray and somber, but closer to the truth. Jean Leon Gerome Ferris captured the first idea in a painting completed in 1915,…
Dear Jeff: Amazon is amazing. In just 20 years as a public company, the company you founded has experienced a thousand-fold growth in sales — going from $148 million in 1997 to $138 billion in 2016 and a projected $160…
If you have been following the business news over the past couple of weeks, you know about “HQ2.” It is the most sought-after prize — the biggest pot of gold, if you will, at the end of a shimmering rainbow…
If you are running a business, what are “the most terrifying words” in the English language? In a famous quip, Ronald Reagan answered, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Everyone got the joke: Beware of any “help”…
With Labor Day just around the corner, now is a good time to discuss (and, more than that, to take up the cudgels against) a bad idea popularized by leading figures in Silicon Valley. It is really a two-part idea….
In any adventure, there is one requirement: Live for the moment — pushing aside unworthy or inappropriate thoughts. A good example comes from ski jumping. Before jumping off the side of a cliff, you must “ache for the impact”: thinking…
In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. When it comes to Missouri’s rapidly proliferating special taxing districts, one-eyed kings pick millions of dollars out of the pockets of unseeing and unsuspecting consumers / taxpayers….
In 2012, prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Barack Obama turned what had been a “gun to the head” of state lawmakers and governors into an act of extraordinary (if reckless) generosity. The then president offered the states “free…
As someone who ran his own business for many years, I am aware of the difference between cost and price, even if it is something that eludes many political leaders and more than a few businesspeople with their noses in…
Wake up, Missouri lawmakers. It is me, the Ghost of a Christmas Yet-to-Come, who whispers in your ear this wintry night. I come not to frighten you (like the baleful ghost in Dickens’s tale) nor to load you down with…