Wisdom in Business!!

Generally when we think of doing a good job we think of how much money and capitol investment we have made. This is not always true since some of the most successful companies don't measure their success by the by total invested but instead by how much productivity and new products or services that they have achieved since the beginning of each quarter and calender year. When thinking of how to gain wealth you must what? Well create a market share and have a product or service that everyone wants such as what Apple has done with the Ipod and sharing services and now Apple TV. You have to know your demographics and know how to exploit them to be a better profitable company in this age of technology. Working on a good model like Apple is will show you how to adapt to a market that is constantly changing and so your products or services have to evolve all the way with the changes. If your profits sink because of lack of innovation and they will if you don't keep up with current trends then you are not doing well because your shorting your customers on what they want. Most business will see this and add other value added products or services to offset the loss in profitability. This is the only way that a company can weather bad economic times and keep growth going or risk going out of business.

The Welfare State!!

This morning I got to read another writer work and it inspired me to write about the views of to many people that I run into on the street and some friends that I have. I find it interesting to learn from listening from people how government is supposed to care for you if you fall down or just get plain rich robbing the tax payers to support your own needs. It seems that as a nation we have become used to big government caring for everything instead of the individual caring for themselves. The idea that government programs are supposed to support your everything from food to drug addictions and housing is absurd. The fact that everyone now is getting some kind of government no matter weather your rich or poor and have nothing I also think is crazy. What happened to the idea that work and creative ideas can make your life better and increase your standard of living which is dependent on in part money? I have to ask this question since everyone with a few exceptions are self proclaimed government leaching. I am not saying that some people don't need a occasional helping hand but we in America have created a bigger problem with programs like welfare, general public cash assistance,food stamps, foster care payments and the list goes on and on. What a shock it would be to have everyone in America work instead of getting Social Security Disability at age 25 or 35 or some other government entitlement and leaching off all the tax payers who work for a large portion of their lives. We in America have become lazy and say to ourselves that if I don't want to work that is OK since government will support me the rest of my life and with all the programs available I can live better than those who work for a living. I find it is appalling the attitude that the following generations have created by the baby boomer generation that raised kids to be slacker and the lower generations have become even more lazy beyond that. I know that many will disagree with me but I see the future of America as a more grim reminder that we are not schooling our kids to be independent minded and reach for their dreams. i just was talking to a guy today that said he is fifty years old and has two college degrees but can not find work doing anything. This I am finding is not unusual for people in my generation and younger to be on some kind of public aid which they seem to have no problem with taking from some government program. I see it differently having never had any government program or assistance in my life except for college education to better myself. This notion that welfare instead of work and if you work or not you should be sucking on some government gravy train program is just sheer madness. I will never forget my father saying to me that he lived through the great depression and my grand parents and him never took not even one red cent of government assistance in his lifetime and I should do the same thing too. My father had great wisdom in saying this because if you start believing that government will care for you then your life will amount to nothing and he is very right about this as I meet to many fellow Americans who have turned into government lazy leaches and their lives certainly reflect it with accomplishing nothing every day and week,year of their lives. It is a sad lament that we as a free people have given up so much of our sovereignty to our own lazy way and attitude of life that used to never exist a even a hundred years ago. In a mere hundred years we have come to a abyss in our great county were we no longer care for our own well being which is a sad thing for such a great people of creative innovation and wealth. This story is very seriously missed by the main stream media and it should be front page news but instead it is never even barely written about which is shocking to me. In closing I think we need to change our attitude and the way we as Americans live our lives by going back to a prosperity of work and limited government so that we all become better citizens of this great country called America.

Japan Crisis Worsens!!

TOKYO–>> Japan's nuclear crisis appeared to be spinning out of control on Wednesday after workers withdrew briefly from a stricken power plant because of surging radiation levels and a helicopter failed to drop water on the most troubled reactor.

In a sign of desperation, police will try to cool spent nuclear fuel at one of the facility's reactors with water cannon, normally used to quell riots.

Early in the day, another fire broke out at the earthquake-crippled facility, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering fear in the capital and international alarm.

Japan's government said radiation levels outside the plant's gates were stable but, in a sign of being overwhelmed, appealed to private companies to help deliver supplies to tens of thousands of people evacuated from around the complex.

"People would not be in immediate danger if they went outside with these levels. I want people to understand this," Chief Cabinet Secretary told a televised news conference, referring to people living outside a 30-km (18-mile) exclusion zone. Some 140,000 people inside the zone have been told to stay indoors.

The European Union's energy chief, told the European Parliament that the plant was "effectively out of control" after breakdowns in the facility's cooling system.

Workers cleared debris to build a road so fire trucks could reach reactor No. 4 at the Daiichi complex in Fukushima, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. Flames were no longer visible at the building housing the reactor.

High radiation levels prevented a helicopter from dropping water into the No. 3 reactor to try to cool its fuel rods after an earlier explosion damaged the unit's roof and cooling system.

The plant operator described No. 3 -- the only reactor at that uses plutonium in its fuel mix -- as the "priority." Plutonium, once absorbed in the bloodstream, can linger for years in bone marrow or liver and lead to cancer.

The situation at No. 4 reactor, where the fire broke out, was "not so good," the plant operator added, while water was being poured into reactors No. 5 and 6, indicating the entire six-reactor facility was now at risk of overheating.

"Getting water into the pools of the No.3 and No.4 reactors is a high priority," a senior official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Administration, told a news conference, adding the pool for spent fuel rods at No. 3 was heating up while No.4 remained a concern.

"It could become a serious problem in a few days," he said.

A military helicopter may be used again to try to drop water and troops mobilized to help pump water by land, he said.

Nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the complex were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

"This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium-industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Japanese Emperor, delivering a rare video message to his people, said he was deeply worried by the country's nuclear crisis which was "unprecedented in scale."

"I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times," the emperor said.

Panic over the economic impact of last Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami knocked $620 billion off Japan's stock market over the first two days of this week, but the Nikkei index rebounded on Wednesday to end up 5.68 percent.

Nevertheless, estimates of losses to Japanese output from damage to buildings, production and consumer activity ranged from between 10 and 16 trillion yen ($125-$200 billion), up to one-and-a-half times the economic losses from the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Damage to Japan's manufacturing base and infrastructure is also threatening significant disruption to the global supply chain, particularly in the technology and auto sectors.

CHINA SUSPENDS NUCLEAR PLANS

Scores of flights to Japan have been halted or rerouted and air travelers are avoiding Tokyo for fear of radiation. On Wednesday, both France and Australia urged their nationals in Japan to leave the country as authorities grappled with the world's most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

Russia said it planned to evacuate families of diplomat on Friday.

In a demonstration of the qualms about nuclear power that the crisis has triggered around the globe, China announced that it was suspending approvals for planned plants and would launch a comprehensive safety check of facilities.

China has about two dozen reactors under construction and plans to increase nuclear electricity generation about seven-fold over the next 10 years.

Russian President Medvedev said nuclear power was safe provided power stations were built in the right place and designed and managed properly. Russia ordered checks at nuclear facilities on Tuesday.

In Japan, the plight of hundreds of thousands left homeless by the earthquake and devastating tsunami that followed worsened following a cold snap that brought snow to worst-affected areas.

Supplies of water and heating oil are low at evacuation centers, where many survivors wait bundled in blankets.

"It's cold today so many people have fallen ill, getting diarrhea and other symptoms," said Takanori Watanabe, a Red Cross doctor in Otsuchi, a low-lying town where more than half the 17,000 residents are still missing.

While the official death toll stands at around 4,000, thousands are listed as missing and the number of dead is expected to rise.

At the Fukushima plant, authorities have spent days desperately trying to prevent water designed to cool the radioactive cores of the reactors from evaporating, which would lead to overheating and possibly a dangerous meltdown.

Until the heightened alarm about No.3 reactor, concern had centered on damage to a part of the No.4 reactor building, where spent rods were being stored in pools of water, and also to part of the No.2 reactor that helps to cool and trap the majority of cesium, iodine and strontium in its water.

Japanese officials said they were talking to the U.S. about possible help at the plant.

Concern has mounted that the skeleton crews dealing with the crisis might not be big enough or were exhausted after working for days since the earthquake damaged the facility.

Authorities withdrew 750 workers for a time on Tuesday, briefly leaving only 50. All those remaining were pulled out for almost an hour on Wednesday because radiation levels were too high, but they were later allowed to return. By the end of the day, about 180 were working at the plant.

RADIATION IN TOKYO NOT A THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH

In the first hint of international frustration at the pace of updates from Japan, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he wanted more timely and detailed information.

"We do not have all the details of the information so what we can do is limited," Amano told a news conference in Vienna. "I am trying to further improve the communication."

Several experts said the Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particularly on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale, but that rating was issued on Saturday and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.

France's nuclear safety authority ASN said on Tuesday it should be classed as a level-six incident.

At its worst, radiation in Tokyo reached 0.809 microsieverts per hour on Tuesday -- 10 times below what a person would receive if exposed to a dental x-ray. For Wednesday, radiation levels were barely above average.

But many Tokyo residents stayed indoors. Usually busy streets were nearly deserted. Many shops and offices were closed.

Winds over the plant blew out toward the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday.

Japanese media have became more critical of Kan's handling of the disaster and have criticized the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. for their failure to provide enough information on the incident.

Nuclear radiation is an especially sensitive issue for Japanese following the country's worst human catastrophe -- the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The full extent of the destruction was slowly becoming clear as rescuers combed through the tsunami-torn region north of Tokyo where officials say at least 10,000 people were killed.

There have been hundreds of aftershocks and more than two dozen were greater than magnitude 6, the size of the earthquake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand, last month -- powerful enough to sway buildings in Tokyo.

About 850,000 households in the north were still without electricity in near-freezing weather, Tohuku Electric Power Co. said, and the government said at least 1.5 million households lack running water. Tens of thousands of people were missing.

Japan EarthQuake!!

I think that everyone should be helping out our neighbors in Japan as they really need help due to the devestation that just recently happened. Give generouly to all charity organizations that support food and relief to the battered people of Japan. Go to International Red Cross and donate your help..

New Group!!

Hello,
I just wanted to update everyone on the new business group on Google that I have started last week. If anyone is interested you can join the business discussion on (Modern World) and have a interesting chat about what business ventures are doing to combat the sagging economy and a whole lot more. Everyone is welcome to post to this group and talk about the new markets that you have found or products that you know about or are creating presently. I hope this will be a lively group of business people sharing ideas and products development and marketing.. Have a really great day now and chat live on the group (Modern World) as it is active on Google Groups.