DAY’S MIRACLE

By Wendell W. Solomons

From 3,000 word alert of July 28th, 1992 to ‘Moscow News’ and World Bank Chief Economist

These jointly owned public assets hold, for example, the lifetime savings of engineers, doctors, teachers, technicians and other workers. In the particular case of divesting these assets into private ownership, careful costing is also required so as to minimise the loss of the savings of working men and women. Causing group insolvency and ethnic breakdown has to be avoided.

Alienation of jointly owned public assets to legal persons also requires the development of civil and company law, which includes development of courts and the training of lawyers.

If a Hey-Presto approach failed, someone else would have to subsidise the earnings and pensions of above 300 million people, young and old, while courses in auditing, accountancy and finance, marketing, management, business economics, banking, insurance, and commercial law are taught… 

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This account begins near the Church of Nicholas the Miracle-Worker in Leo Tolstoi Street. Near it, at a parking lot where foreigners park their cars, men were trying to achieve their miracle.

Somewhat rare even for Moscow, the temperature had dropped overnight to 38 degrees below freezing. Dramatically, brightly coloured American, British, French and German-owned Citroens, Fords, Peugeots, Volkswagens, and Volvos, refused to start. Winter had turned the foreign cars into disheartening heaps of metal.

Few of the foreigners that first morning noticed one man at work. He had placed a tray of glowing coals, a saving from a summer picnic, under the engine of his maroon Volvo … He knew he could warm the engine oil slightly to help the pistons slide in the cylinders. A Britisher, the expertise for his miracle had come from working as a serviceman in Norway.

Many people search for a miracle to avoid further shortages, price rises, and turmoil in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Thinking about figures he had seen in July 1992 U.S. President George Bush had expressed it in his way, “I don’t know if there is enough money in the world to solve Russia’s economy.”

Every miracle worker has his expertise. Matthew XV-14 cautions-

“And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

To make a larger social miracle possible, what expertise could be used? May we have a look at Asia? The spirituality of modern Europe originated in Asia’s Nazareth …

 

STAR TO THE EAST

ASIAWEEK magazine’s editors saw and took up our large socio-economic problem on July 24th, 1992. They had an observation to make on available expertise in the East

“China’s leaders know what can happen if prices rise too fast. They wrote the book on creating special economic zones as laboratories for free-market reforms, which can then be applied to the rest of the country.”

And to the East of China is Japan – whose star experiences even American companies study. There, a century ago Japan had began the intensive search for expertise. In the inceptional promise of office in 1868, the Japanese ruler who began uniting several Japanese territories declared -

“Knowledge shall be sought for throughout the world, so that the welfare of the Empire may be promoted.”

With a need to take over from several provincial Shoguns and unite Japan, the 16-year old Emperor Meiji led the rapid study and emulation of the practices of Europe.

Between the epochs of Pythagoras and Newton, although many people had been blocked in the hinterland, Europe served as a testing ground for an Asian ethos. It happened to be one that challenged detachment and was cosmopolitan. As this ethos established itself, Western Europe no longer saw Saturn’s day and Thor’s day in the week nor glorified the wisdom of the Stoic recluse who detached himself from the world. The enlightenment of the solitary recluse was replaced by the ‘folly’ foretold in 1st Corinthians I/17-29, exemplified for instance by a prayer called OUR FATHER which contains neither solitary “I” nor “Me.”

In East Asia, Japan had arisen to the popular transition to the European Age of Enlightenment. And in 1890, universal primary school education was adopted as Japan’s goal. Thanks to the study of Europe’s success in education, Japan had begun to think of life in terms of the advances of community centred and community involved Europe. Notably, the Emperor tried to prepare the Japanese for using not only the perimeter of the storm and typhoon-ridden volcanic islands, but also the whole world as a treasury of cosmopolitan expertise from which to select and better slough off national handicaps.

What was the result of this experiment?

How easy it is for us to jump a century forward . . . We hear a news report that says Japan’s trade surplus with the rest of the world increased by 50% during the first six months of 1992 as compared with the previous year. More than one-third of the same trade surplus was gained at the expense of another country that directly inherited the European Age of Enlightenment – the United States.

Yet, we know that the surface area of the Japanese archipelago of four hilly main islands and several thousand others, adds up to less the area of the single U.S. state of California.

While the small David grew, what had the larger nation been doing?

STAR TO THE WEST

U.S. Soldier-President Dwight D. Eisenhower knew of the need for advance. He had this to say, “Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.”

Previously, as a Commander of Allied Forces during the war Eisenhower had answered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt who knew the challenge of leadership in the broad spectrum of national and international. He had said, “We defend and we build a way of life, not for America alone, but for all mankind.”

It says still more of his vision when we learn that Roosevelt resounded to the aspiration, so different from what the Mercantilists believed -

“The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilisation. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.”

And even on the other side of the U.S. political divide, Roosevelt’s Republican counterpart exhibited a kindred stand on leadership when he agreed to visit Moscow during the war as Presidential emissary. He, Wendell L. Willkie, in addition brings out the link of strength to productivity in this paradoxical way

“It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.”

Although “money-changers” contrasted with “the productive” for the generation of these two leaders, different events were to follow. America – privileged child of the Age of Enlightenment – had become Japan’s occupying power and had broken down Japan’s leading business holdings. At the same time, counterpart U.S. holdings remained full and rich.

What more than a chance to enjoy this good fortune?

Influential American households had inherited the sort of money fortunes that many an old European princedom would have envied. The heads of these American households were now able to invest in the acclaim of muses and sages and evade a new problem – the headache of leadership.

Among the sages who relieved them of that headache was Milton Friedman. His Monetarism, if we consult an encyclopaedia entry for brevity, concentrated on boosting economic growth through the regulation of the money supply in a country’s economy. Innovation, productivity, and economic
strength were to follow automatically – they were not to bother America’s new leadership.

What entered official thinking was in a sense a throwback to the 17th and 18th-Century Mercantilists of France and England. These publicists offered support to mercenaries, merchant houses and colonial despots by seeing economic growth solely at the interface of the exchange of merchants’ goods, and most particularly in the negotiation of the money of the day, gold coin and bullion. English playwright Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) had explained in hyperbole -

“A mask of gold hides all deformities.”

Both Mercantilists and Monetarists gave comfort and reassurance to the wielders of money wealth by saying that the attributes they used were the fundamental levers of life. When this fetish was projected far and wide by TV in modern times, it grasped the United States with a fever remarkably like that of King Midas who coveted the golden touch until it began to turn his food and his loved ones into frigid gold.

Spellbound by the projection of glitter such as that of Monetarism, U.S. productivity began to drop after the war. The families that had developed into inheritors of U.S. wealth had reached those circumstances in life when they detached themselves from America’s innovators. To illustrate the gap between the planners of U.S. business strategy and innovators let us take just one example.

SONY bought rights to the use of the transistor from a U.S. concern for just $25,000. Innovation after innovation was used by the Japanese consumer electronics industry, which took over from American firms in America’s own market in radios, tape recorders, TV sets, high quality stereo, and video.

In two rather famous articles published in 1983 in THE ATLANTIC REVIEW, Harvard University’s Robert B. Reich noticed the trend and said

“More than 65 percent of all seats on the boards of Japanese manufacturing companies are occupied by people who are trained as engineers; roughly the same percentage of seats on American boards are taken by people trained in law, finance or accountancy. Thus, in Japan, many problems that arise in business are viewed as problems of engineering or science, for which technical solutions can be found…’

“Paper entrepreneuralism is both cause and consequence of America’s faltering economy. Paper profits are the only ones available to professional managers who sit isolated atop organisations designed for a form of production that is no longer appropriate to America’s place in the world economy…’

“Paper entrepreneuralism thus has a self-perpetuating quality that, if left unchecked, will drive the nation to further decline.”

Just before Robert Reich sounded this alarm, Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman had put out a book, “In Search of Excellence”, which focused on better organisation. Their book was widely read in U.S. industry and acclaimed. Some companies strode out to focus on more rational organisation, MOTOROLA and IBM being cases in point. Yet, the general pattern remained unchanged. American wealth had fallen into a leadership position, but its leadership was abdicating it.

Finally, due to the Mercantilism, which took over everyday U.S. trade policy, to reduce friction SONY, HONDA, SANYO, YKK and other Japanese corporations began the transport of factories to the United States and learned to manage a U.S. workforce.

Thus, evasion had begun again. Famed writer H. G. Wells had once noted, “Every time Europe looks across the Atlantic to see the American Eagle, it observes only the rear end of an ostrich.”   

 

EXPERTISE FOR MIRACLES

If we try to measure Gross National Product (GNP) in current US dollars, we find Japan increased its per capita GNP from some $50 for year 1945 to the figure of $27,000 for year 1992. Japan has overtaken the United States ($ 22,000), Canada ($21,000), Germany ($21,000), France ($ 21,000). If you try to work it out, you find that on the average Japan increased its GNP at current prices during the last 47 years at 14.3% every year (try this figure as a constant on your calculator if you don’t have a computer handy). Who else has such development expertise?

Philip Kotler, a noted U.S. marketeer, provided a useful analysis. Not for him paper or peddlers’ capitalism. He analyses marketing-oriented, modern industrial production. His own words follow next.

TARGET INDUSTRIES

Japan’s need to rebuild the nation, to control its balance of payments, to create exports, and to manage its economy back to health, led Japan to consider selecting certain industries for targeted growth … a target industry is simply an industry that Japan identifies as being worthy of whatever support is deemed necessary to make it a strong industry domestically and to help it become and remain competitive in the international arena.

 

THE PROPELLER-THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT

During 1949-55, Japan put together the institutional instruments that were to catapult it into the economic big league. Unquestionably, the pivotal entity in this institutional structure was MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) which came into being in 1949. Even its title is significant. The inclusion of international trade is indicative of Japanese intent to guide resources toward the exploitation of international markets.

MITI worked very closely with many other governmental agencies, particularly the Ministry of Finance and the Japan Development Bank.

At the core of MITI’s roles lie separate though related elements

1. Establishing objectives and priorities for the Japanese economy

2. Developing the economic (physical) and institutional (commercial) infrastructure

3. Selecting target industries

4. Funnelling the necessary capital to target industries and specific firms

5. Nurturing target industries toward maturity

6. Developing the means to regulate all forms of competition within the Japanese economy

7. Controlling the flow of foreign investment into Japan

8. Managing the institutional environment.

Primarily through the auspices of MITI, Japan has designated a series of industries for development and nurturing. These industries were aided through financial, tax, and technology supports and were sheltered from foreign competition in the domestic market … (Philip Kotler’s writes with co-authors in full in WORLD EXECUTIVE’S DIGEST, September, 1985.)

 

MARKETING-DRIVEN INDUSTRY AND FOREIGN SUBSIDIES

As compared with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, if marketing-driven industry is developed, Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States have certain advantages – and certain disadvantages. Let us take the advantages first -

(a) These states already posses a developed science-teaching potential more than that which Japan, South Korea or Taiwan had. Some states also have more scientists, engineers, technicians and skilled workers;

(b) Some states have far more foreign language and country specialists than Japanese or other foreign trade concerns started with; most countries also have common geographic and cultural borders with many others for fast, cross-border trade.

(c) Most countries have more mineral resources.

Last but hardly least -

(d) In many of these countries, Marx, with several generations of Rabbis in his ancestry, helped create a strong congregational “We.” In modern times Japan fostered in the factory a community spirit to combat the alienation that plagues American industrial sociology. Thus Japan was able to turn every work day at the factory into a teach-in for increasing productivity and joint success. People who happened to play a major role in the development of Japanese participative management include Kaoru Ishikawa and several activists who link together in the Tokyo-ba
sed Japan Union of Scientists and Engineers. They acknowledge a debt to U.S. statistician W. Edwards Deming of New York University, who contributed in 1950 to Japan’s participative quality management system. In this connection and finally, the work of a host of North Americans such as William Ouchi (UCLA) and Olga Crocker (Windsor) who have studied Japan’s participative management at a technical level are available in current literature and would be valuable in the selection of expertise apt to the historical challenge.

The list of disadvantages of these nations is long. So as not to grow weary and put off the task, let us take a look at the solution of two items in their agenda.

(1) These nations have to develop marketing. For many shopfloor engineers, this requires going back to the class-room. The existing system in which these engineers worked was based on macro-planning of production and distribution. Yet, far more would be required than market training for in-plant personnel. For example, business development on a country-wide scale the founding of companies, partnerships and proprietorship for merchandising, retailing, wholesaling, warehousing, handling, and trucking both for home and export needs. Consider that such business development cannot occur without the costly injection of fixed and working capital after the development of credit banks due to missing venture capital, an operation well known at the World Bank.

(2) These nations have to make private property stand out. If a large volume of assets was divested in another country with a market economy, careful timing would be used by professional asset managers so as not to depress market values suddenly.

Although the term state capitalism does occur in academic discussion, assets in these countries do not belong to a giant business magnate. These jointly owned public assets hold, for example, the life-time savings of engineers, doctors, teachers, technicians and other workers. In the particular case of divesting these assets into private ownership, careful costing is also required so as to minimise the loss of the savings of working men and women. Causing group insolvency and ethnic breakdown has to be avoided. Alienation of jointly owned public assets (obshestvennaya sobstvennost’) to legal persons also requires the development of civil and company law, which includes development of courts and the training of lawyers. If a Hey-Presto approach failed, someone else would have to subsidise the earnings and pensions of above 300 million people, young and old, men and women, while courses in auditing, accountancy and finance, marketing, management, business economics, banking, insurance, and commercial law are taught; and while macro-planned factories, farms, land, apartments, hospitals, universities and schools are valued by auditors at market prices or by a method of re-allocation of the savings in these assets themselves, and divested to buyers.

Even if large capitalised foreign buyers of factories and farms materialise, would national output at least continue at the previous level so as not to leave others a bill for subsidies from outside? There have been guesses about the size of that annual subsidy bill and as we know of July 1992, U. S. President George Bush put in this way, “I don’t know if there is enough money in the world to solve Russia’s economy.”

In the event of failure, a big-bang operation in continental Euro-Asia would topple a subsidy bill on cities such as Rome, Vienna, Bonn, Paris, London, Dublin, Glasgow, Madrid, Lisbon, Brussels, The Hague, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo. Now hardly noticed, land barriers have gradually faded. That has made several of these cities no more than one week’s journey by road from the Church of Nicholas the Miracle-Worker, patron saint of Moscow. It is Saint Nick, called Santa Claus in the West by children, who enters through the chimney making many a Christmas wish miraculously come true. Now, if you happen to be a Mummy or Daddy wishing for a miracle near this church, should you choose the star of the East or the star of the West for your route?

 

History of document

Edited in Colombo by Revd. Graeme W. M. Muckart of the Church of Scotland in July 1992.

Text sent by Wendell W. Solomons to Lawrence Summers, IBRD Chief Economist, from Colombo through Metalix private agency post office fax 580721 to Washington IBRD fax 202-4776391 on July 28th, 1992.

Telexes on the subject begun to TW 886-2-7761549 and faxes from May 1st.

Communications received from IBRD by Wendell W. Solomons

(a) Courier packet of documents, DHL, Forwarder Airbill No: 756176536 SPS 744556072, of Aug 7th, 1992, despatched by Etienne Pierart, Dept: 824, Div: 11, Room: 0-4137, The World Bank.

(b) Letter of same date under signature of Etienne Pierart.

(c) Letter of November 30th, 1992 reference No: D28811 (3); 10/19/92, from World Bank under signature of Julita R.S. Main.

 

LILY TOMLIN –“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”  

LILY TOMLIN –“We’re the phone company. We don’t care. We don’t have to.”   

LILYTOMLIN –“The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way.”   

LIN YATANG – “Hope is like a road in country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”

LIN YUTANG –“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”    

LIN YUTANG –“Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.”      

LIN YUTANG –“There is nothing more beautiful in this world than a healthy, wise old man.”   

LIN YUTANG –“When I was a boy I didn’t know anything. When I was in college, I thought I knew everything. When I graduated I realised I didn’t know anything. But in my middle age I thought I knew everything. In my old age, I realised again I don’t know anything.”   

LINDA DIREZZI –“Everything is alright in the end. If it’s not alright, then it’s not the end.”

LINDA RAY –“…. if you have the courage to look beyond suffering, you find strength.”   

LINUS PAULING –“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”  

LISA MARIE  PRESLEY –“I don’t attempt to sound like my father —I do my own thing.”    

LIVY- “Men’s plans should be regulated by the circumstances, not circumstances by the plans.”

LIZ CARPENTER –“Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we’ve learned and create something.”

LIZ CARPENTER –“What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can’t re-read a phone call.”     

LLOYD DOUGLAS –“If a man harbours any sort of fear it makes him landlord to a ghost.”  

LOCILLI BALL –“If you want to know how much I love and care for you, count the waves.”           

LOCKE ERICH – “He that has not a mastery over his inclinations; he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger of never being good for anything.”     

LOESJE –“At the end of my salary I always have a lot of month left.”    

LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH –“Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income.”    

LOGON PEARSALL SMITH –“Youth is the time for adventures of the body, but age for the triumph of mind.”  

LONGCHENPA –“Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.”

LONGFELLOW –“All your strength is in your union; your danger is in discord.”  

LONGFELLOW –“Came the Spring with all its splendour, All its birds and all its blossoms, All its flowers, and leaves, and grasses.”

LONGFELLOW- “Fame comes only when deserved, and than is as inevitable as destiny, for it is Destin.”

LONGFELLOW –“I was Easter Sunday the full-blossomed trees filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.”

LOO TZU- “Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.”

LOPE DE VEGA –“With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.”

LORD ACTON –“Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.”        

LORD ACTON –“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.”      

LORD BHIKHU PAREKH –“While patriotism must be evoked, it is important to remember that the diaspora has its own legitimate interests… India’s strength is its cultural universalism and not cultural nationalism. India would be untrue to itself if it ever forgot that it was an open society.”  

LORD BRYON –“Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.”  

LORD BRYON –“To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.”

LORD BUDDHA –“Only sacred thoughts can lead to sacred speech. The tongue has been given to man to speak the truth, to be sweet to others, to praise the Divine and enjoy the bliss derived from such sacred speech.”

LORD BYRON –“In her first passion women loves her lover. In all the others all she loves is love.”

LORD BYRON –“Romances paint at full length people’s wooing, but only give a bust of marriages; but no one cares for matrimonial cooing.”   

LORD BYRON –“The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.”   

LORD BYRON –“To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.”

LORD BYRON –“What if fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.”   

LORD CHASTERFIELD- “Cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity.”

LORD CHASTERFIELD- “If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.”

LORD CHESTERFIELD –“A man may if he knows not have to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grind stone.”

LORD CHESTERFIELD –“An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.” 

LORD CHESTERFIELD –“An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.”  

LORD CHESTERFIELD- “Unlike my subject, will I frame my song. It shall be witty and it shan’t be long.”

LORD CURZON –“India has left a deeper mark upon the history, philosophy and religions of mankind than any other terrestrial unity in the universe.”  

LORD DAVID CECIL-“The first step to knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.”

LORD GEORGE BROWN –“It is difficult to go on strike if there is no work in the first place.”  

LORD JEFFERY –“Beware prejudices. They are like rats and man’s minds are like traps; prejudices get in easily; but it is doubtful if they ever get out.”  

LORD JOHN RUSSELL- “If peace can not be maintained with honor, it is no longer peace.”

LORD LONGFORD –“The male sex still constitutes in many ways the most obstinate vested interest one can find.”   

LORD MAHAVIRA –“Anger, pride, deceit and greed are the four powerful enemies which stimulate sinful deeds. One who desires the welfare of his self should renounce these four flaws… Faith, knowledge and conduct together constitute the path of liberation; this is the path to be followed. The saints have averred that if it is foll
owed in the right way it will lead to liberation, otherwise it will lead to bondage.”          

LORD MAHAVIRA –“By scriptural study one acquires knowledge, is fixed in religion and helps others to be so fixed. Thus by studying multifarious sutras he becomes absorbed in the contemplation of what is expounded therein.”           

LORD MAHAVIRA –“I surrender this body for the sake of my soul. This body is not mine. With this feeling I shall use my body. To cross a river, a boat is needed. I shall use my body as a boat to cross the river of life. I shall bear all the pangs of suffering by being immersed in the soul.”

LORD MANCROFT –“Cricket — a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity.”         

LORD PARKER- “A judge is not supposed to any thing about the facts of life until they have been presented in evidence and explained to him at least three times.”

LORD TENNYSON –“I chatter, chatter, as I flow, to join the brimming river, for men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.”

LORD TENNYSON -“I found Him in the shining of the stars I marked Him in the flowering of his fields But in His ways with men I find Him not.”     

LOREN –“There is a fountain of youth; it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life.”   

LORI GORDON –“Love is a feeling, marriage is a contract, and relationships are work.”    

LORI VALIGRA –“It took 75 years for telephones to be used by 50 million customers, but it took only four years for the Internet.”   

LORRIE MORGAN –“When you stop dreaming, you stop living.”  

LORRY GROSS –“Living’s merely the stage/untutored actors age on —/ nothing sage, nothing profound/ happens, only drowned emotions/ some uncrowned king inside/ continues to hide, refuses/to stride the world unfettered, flag unfurled against/ fate’s hurled arrows, cannot/ invent his plot, must/ speak what is penned/ for him, suspend himself,/ amend, pretend until he/ becomes someone free, someone/striding Galilee, crowned messiah/ in a world he never meant to be.”      

LORRY WILCOX –“I like to sit back and take in nature. To look at the birds, listen to their singing, go hiking, camping and jogging and running, walking along the beach, playing games and sometimes being alone with the great outdoors. It’s very special to me.”          

LORRY WILDE –“Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.”   

LOTUS SUTRA –“A gracious cloud full of moisture;/ Lightning-flames flash and dazzle,/ Voice of thunder vibrates afar,/ Bringing joy and ease to all./ The sun’s rays are veiled,/ And the earth is cooled;/ The cloud lowers and spreads/ As if it might be caught and gathered;/ It’s rain everywhere equally/ Descends on all sides,/ Streaming and pouring unstinted,/ Permeating the land.”     

LOTUS SUTRA –“From the one water which Issued from that cloud, Plants, trees, /thickets, forests, According to their need receive moisture. All the various trees,… Each according to its size, Grows and develops… Wherever the one rain reaches, All become fresh and glossy According as their bodies, forms And natures are great or small, So the enriching rain, Though it is one and the same, Yet makes each of them flourish. In like manner also the Buddha Appears here in the world, Like unto a great cloud Universally covering all things; And having appeared in the world, He, for the sake of the living, Discriminates and proclaims The truth in regard to all laws. The Great Holy World-honoured One Proclaims: I am the Tathagata, The Most Honoured among men; I appear in the world Like unto this great cloud, To pour enrichment on all Parched living beings, To free them from their misery To attain the joy of peace, Joy of the present world, And joy of Nirvana… I preach the Law equally; As I preach to one person, So I preach to all… Never am I weary of Pouring it copious on the world, Like the all-enriching rain.”

LOTUS SUTRA –“The Dwelling of the Tathagata is the great compassionate heart within all the living. The Role of the Tathagata is the gentle and forbearing heart. That seat of the Tathagata is the spirituality of all existence.” 

LOU ERICKSON –“Gardening requires a lot of water — most of it is in the form of perspiration.”  

LOU HOLTZ –“Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”   

LOU HOLTZ –“If you don’t make a total commitment to whatever you’re doing, then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking. It’s tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing, let alone when a guy stands up and starts putting his jacket on… All winning teams are goal-oriented. Teams like these win consistently because everyone connected with them concentrates on specific objectives. They go about their business with blinders on; nothing will distract them from achieving their aims.”   

LOU REED- “Just a perfect day/ you made me forget myself/ I thought I was/ someone else, someone good.”

LOUIS A ALIEN –“The greatest potential for controlling the ends is to exist at the point where action takes place.”         

LOUIS D BRANDEIS –“The only title in our democracy superior to that of president is the title of citizen.”       

LOUIS KRONENBERG –“For young people today things move so fast there is no problem of adjustment. Before you can adjust to A, B has appeared leading by the hand, and with D in the distance.”   

LOUIS KRONENBERGER –“The technique of winning is so shoddy the terms of winning are so ignoble, the tenure of winning; is so brief; and the specter of the has-been — a shameful rather than a pitiable sight today—brings a sudden chill even to our sunlit moments.”

LOUIS LEMERY –“It’s strengthening, restorative, and apt to repair decayed strength and make people strong.”           

LOUIS PASTEUR –“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”   

LOUIS PASTEUR –“When meditating over a disease, I never think of finding a remedy for it, but, instead, a means of preventing it.”  

LOUISA M. ALCOTT –“Work is and always has been my salvation, and I thank the Lord for it.”  

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT –“Far way there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”

LOUISE BROOKS –“Excellence comes at a result of ceaseless concentration.”

LOUISE ERICKSON –“Kisses may not spread germs, but they certainly lower resistance.”

LOUISE L HAY –“Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school?… We would have happy people who feel good about themselves. We would have people who are comfortable financially and who enrich the economy by investing their money wisely.”

LOUISE L HAY –“I have never understood the importance of having children memories battle dates… Instead,
we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security How | to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relation ships, and How to Create and Maintain Self Esteem and Self-Worth.” 

LOUISE L HAY –“Imagine yourself in line at a…buffet in a luxurious hotel, where instead of dishes of food, there are dishes of thoughts. You get to choose any and all the thoughts you wish. These thoughts will create your future experiences.”  

LOUISE L HAY –“Now, if you choose thoughts that will create problems and pain, that’s rather foolish. It’s like choosing food that always makes you ill. We may do this once or twice, but as soon as we learn which foods upset our bodies, we stay away from them. It’s the same with thoughts. Let us stay away from thoughts that create problems and pain…”  

LOUISE L HAY –“What are you thinking right now? If your thoughts shape your life, would you want what you were just thinking right now to become true for you? If it’s a thought of worry or anger or hurt or revenge or fear, how do you think this thought will not come back to you?…”   

LOUISE L HAY –“What are you thinking right now? If…your thoughts shape your life, would you want what you were just thinking right now to become true for you? If it’s a thought of worry or anger or hurt or revenge or fear, how do you think this thought will not come back to you?… Imagine yourself in line at a…buffet in a luxurious hotel, where instead of dishes of food, there are dishes of thoughts. You get to choose any and all the thoughts you wish. These thoughts will create your future experiences. Now, if you choose . thoughts that will create problems and pain, that’s I rather foolish. It’s like choosing food that always makes you ill… It’s the same with thoughts. Let us stay away from thoughts that create problems and pain… I have never understood the importance of having children memorise battle \ dates… Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships… Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would belike if they had I been taught these subjects in school?… We would have happy people who feel good about themselves. We would have people who are comfortable financially and who enrich the economy by investing their money wisely.”     

LOUISE NEVELSON –“I never feel age — if you have creative work, you don’t have age or time.”  

LOVE TROTSKY –“One must know the limitations offorce; one must know when to blend a blow with an agreement.”

LUBBOCK –“There is, however, a true music of Nature —the song of the birds, the whisper of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or sea.” 

LUCIANO DE CRESCENZO –“We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another.”

LUCILLE BALL –“Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact , that’s good taste.”

LUCILLE BALL –“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.”   

LUCILLE BALL –“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age.”  

LUCILLE GAMBRELL –“You are God’s special gift to the world. You are a bright and shining star. When you look into your eyes in the mirror each morning, tell yourself, I am hope. I am joy. I am free. I am happy. I am love. More important, I am me.”

LUCILLE HARPER –“The nice thing about egotists is that they don’t talk about the other people.”

LUCY –“ Pear God, Are you really invisible or is that just a trick?”

LUCY BENINGTON –“Opportunities are everywhere. The recession might be drawing to a close, but its continuing legacy is employer’s reliance on short-term staff. There may be fewer jobs for life, but there are more jobs in a lifetime.”  

LUCY VAN PELT –“All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt!”        

LUDWIA VAN BEETHOVEN-“O, life is so beautiful but to me it is poisoned.”

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN –“I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy”         

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN –Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.” 

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN –“0 friends! Not these sounds! But let us strike up more pleasant sounds and more joyful!” 

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN –“Do you come crashing down, you millions? Do you sense the Creator’s presence, world? Seek Him above the starry firmament, For above the stars he surely dwells.” 

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN –“Embrace each other now, you millions! The kiss is for the whole wide world! Brothers — over the starry firmament A beloved Father must surely dwell.”

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN –“I will seize Fate by the throat. It will not wholly conquer me! Oh, how beautiful it is to live—and live a thousand times over!”   

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN –“Joy is drunk by every creature From Nature’s fair and charming breast; Every being, good or evil, Follows in her rosy steps. Kisses she gave to us, and vines, And one good friend, tried in death; The serpent she endowed with base desire And the cherub stands before God…”

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN –“Joy, 0 wondrous spark divine, Daughter of Elysium, Drunk with fire now we enter, Heavenly one, your holy shrine. Your magic powers join again What fashion strictly did divide; Brotherhood unites all men Where your gentle wings spread wide…”

LUDWIG VON MISES –“Economics is not about things and tangible material objects; it is about men, their meanings and actions.”   

LUDWIG VON MISES –“There’s no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would stand midway be

[“Hot Stocks” is a new Money Morning feature that analyzes the investment outlook of global companies that are in the news. This is the eighth installment of this ongoing investment series.]

Money Morning Staff Reports

If you like the car, will you love the company?

When it comes to Ford Motor Co. (F), a Canadian car dealer bet a month’s sales on that premise.

Rose City Ford dealership owner John Chisholm offered 100 shares of Ford stock to anyone who bought a new or used vehicle from the dealership during the month of November, the Windsor Star newspaper reported. Chisholm, the president and general manager of Rose City, said he got the idea from a General Motors Co. (GM) dealership in Texas that offered GM shares for each vehicle sold. So Chisholm opted to try it in Windsor, the Ontario, Canada city where Ford has both a long history and deep community roots.

“What a great way to show our confidence in the company,” Chisholm, who employs 80 at a dealership that his father founded nearly 30 years ago, said in an interview late last week. “We believe the company is going to be around for a long, long time.”

Chisholm was planning to actually buy the shares Monday for customers who bought a vehicle last month. He expects to extend the promotion, should its popularity continue.

“We want as many people with ownership in the company as we can,” said Chisholm, who owns Ford shares himself. “They’ll be going up. This is an incentive that is going to grow.”

Just how big a payoff the incentive deal provides the dealership’s customers will depend on whether Ford is able to turn itself around in the coming months.

Thanks to the ongoing global financial crisis – and stung by the worst sales slump in 25 years – Ford lost $3 billion in the third quarter and now the Dearborn, Mich.-based company and its two other “Big Three” cohorts are pressing both U.S. and Canadian lawmakers for emergency aid. All three are to submit turnaround plans to Congress this week – a requirement if General Motors, Ford and Chrysler Corp., are to receive $25 billion in U.S. government bailout loans.

Some details began to emerge yesterday (Tuesday), according to a report that runs elsewhere in today’s (Wednesday’s) issue of Money Morning. Among other things, Ford is considering the sale of its stake in Volvo as it seeks to raise cash.

Anthony J. “Tony” Faria, a marketing expert who is the co-director of the University of Windsor/DaimlerChrysler Canada Automotive Research and Development Center (ARDC), told the Windsor Star that the Ford promotion was “interesting” and “attention-getting,” even though the present value to customers was less than $300, a small inducement compared to other incentives and rebates.

“I presume Detroit Three dealers probably will be looking for a lot of creative things they can do to improve traffic through their dealerships,” Faria said.

Promotional flyers for what the dealership portrayed as “confidence sale” exhorted local customers to “be a part of history,” proclaiming that “100 shares is the way forward.” Public interest has already been piqued by the inexpensive promotion, which customers say they like because of the potential for a big payoff, the newspaper reported.

“The 100 shares are an absolute bonus,” customer Tina Reed said, just before she drove away from the dealership in a brand-new charcoal-gray Ford Focus. “I keep an eye on the stock market but now I’ll pay a little more attention.”

JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) credit analysts had rated GM’s distressed debt as a “Buy,” noting that the company – known for such brands as Chevrolet and Buick – was likely going to survive.

Interestingly, Ford has a market cap of $6.09 billion – making the company known for bringing forth such innovations as mass production, the Model T and the assembly line more than twice as valuable as GM, the market-share leader (of the U.S. carmakers). Ford had $172.5 billion in sales last year, and $160.1 billion in 2006.

GM had $181.2 billion in sales last year and $205.6 billion in 2006, according to statistics provided by Google Finance. The company right now has a market value of only $2.8 billion.

Shares in the embattled automaker hovered near $30 in 2001, but have nose-dived since that time. GM’s shares closed Monday at $4.59 each, a decline of 65 cents each, or 12.4%. They have traded as high as $29.95 in the past 12 months.

Ford shares closed Monday at $2.55 each, down 14 cents, or 5.2% per share. They’ve traded as high as $8.79 in the past year.

Whether the price will tank or skyrocket in these uncertain times is anybody’s guess but many, including Faria, the marketing expert, believe the stock is poised for a rebound – especially if the U.S. and Canadian governments can agree on a multibillion-dollar bailout package.

I’ve seriously thought about buying a lot of Ford shares at this price because one of two things is going to happen,” Faria said. “Either Ford is going to fail and you’re going to lose all of it or, if Ford doesn’t fail, the shares, at some point, are going to be worth a lot more.”

Faria said Ford was in better shape financially than GM and Chrysler, but conceded that the fates of all three are intertwined because they share suppliers dependent on business from all three – and because of the need for government aid.

Not everyone sees a bright future for Ford. Indeed, one Web site wag wrote on the Windsor Star Web site that “I have some Penn Central, WorldCom., Enron, Nortel (NT) and Citibank (C) shares if Mr. Chisholm would like to take them in trade for a new car. They are in certificate form, so he can use them to decorate the showroom. Cheaper than buying new wallpaper.”

To read more click here.

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