Is there any sport that gives back more to the community than NASCAR?

http://www.looktothestars.org/news/6522-nascar-legends-wife-auctions-dress-for-charity

Here is what Jeff Gordon and his wife are doing:

“Vandebosch chose this gown for the annual 2011 Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala. Proceeds from this auction will benefit the research and treatment of childhood cancer initiatives through the work of The Promise Circle, a fund of the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation. Ms. Vandebosch is a founding and active member of The Promise Circle.”

This dress will raise needed money to fight childhood cancer. That’s just one example of all the good that NASCAR drivers do for the community…and just one more reason why this is the greatest sport in the world.

Today we continue to celebrate the bravery of the US military and the Navy Seals who finally brought Osama Bin Laden to justice:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/05/get-bin-laden-obama-relied-policies-he-decried

And it’s worth remembering again that one of the reasons we were able to find Bin Laden is because of the interrogation procedures of the Bush administration:

“The enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly led to identification of the courier who eventually led our forces to bin Laden’s hiding place. Critics of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques assured us that “torture” could not produce reliable information. They were probably right that sometimes such techniques yield false information. But the bin Laden operation shows that they can also produce actionable intelligence. You may remember that many Democrats called for criminal prosecution of CIA interrogators who were acting under orders vetted by legal counsel. Attorney General Eric Holder actually considered bringing such prosecutions.”

Context is so important in these debates. Are enhanced interrogations are a good thing? As a general rule, no. But in this case, they appear to have helped capture Bin Laden. And that means the Bush administration was probably doing the right thing in using these procedures.

As we approach a new year, I want to spend some time on the blog this week talking about my New Year’s Resolutions.

Only these resolutions aren’t about losing weight or eating better (though I should probably try to do both of those, too). Instead, my resolutions will be ways that I believe I can make a difference. All of us can make a difference in our own way. But we have to have a plan to get there.

My plan for 2011 includes doing my part to end this nation’s addiction to foreign oil. We can’t continue to fund tyrannies in the Middle East. We need to develop energy solutions right here in the United States. I believe we need more domestic oil and gas production. But I also believe we need more renewable energy solutions. I’m going to step up my commitment to biomass energy and it all starts with a big announcement after the first of the year. So get ready…change is on the way!

Here is another unintended consequence of the new health care law:

http://lifenews.com/nat6531.html

It seems that despite the assurances of the administration, the new law will indeed fund abortions. Here is how:

“The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new “high-risk” insurance program under a provision of the federal health care legislation enacted in March.”

As part of this new Pennsylvania plan, language was written that says “‘elective abortions are not covered,’ though it does not define elective….”

In other words, there will semantic ways of saying that some abortions are not elective and therefore can be paid for.

This is a sad unintended consequence of the new health care law. Although in this case, I’m not sure how unintended it was.

This week our blog will focus on where we go from here on health care. And believe it or not, this battle is far from over.

There is plenty that state governments and local citizens can do to change the new health care law.

We’ll explain how this week on the blog.

Happy New Year! Last year was a banner year for our website and blog. But we have even more in store for 2010.

This week we are kicking off our 2010 blog with a series of postings about “What to Expect in 2010.” It will cover everything from politics to business. So check in each day this week.

And have a great 2010!

Gas prices have gone up 13 cents in one week in San Antonio?

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2009/05/11/daily29.html

How is that possible? What has changed so dramatically in seven days? Nothing. This just shows again how irrational the oil market is. And, it just shows again how distorted the oil market is by geopolitics. As previously noted in this blog, countries like Saudi Arabia have a vested interest in seeing prices go as high as possible.

The good news is that it doesn’t seem likely the Saudis will be able to jack prices up as high as they did last year:

“Gasoline typically sells higher in the summer months in response to the uptick in consumer demand. However, analysts note that it is unlikely that this summer’s gas prices will reach anything close to the record prices drivers paid last summer.”

But the bad news is that we still live at the mercy of Middle East dictators. Isn’t it time we find a better way to fuel our economy? Yes it is. Right here. Right now.

Today I end the week as I began it–talking about my first ebook, “From Tragedy To Triumph: How Economic Challenges Often Create Economic Progress.”  Here is the link:

http://www.rwhill.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/the-march-ebook2.pdf

When I released the ebook, little did I know that it would hit the same week the story broke about the AIG bonuses. I’m amazed at how smart people can be so dumb. As I’ve written before, the crisis is a symptom of how our business leaders are looking backward rather than forward. As my book notes, American entrepreneurs have always used times of crisis to create new products and develop new approaches. So far, AIG isn’t doing much of that.

But my guess is plenty of other companies are. And their experiments will benefit all of us in the years to come.

Here is a question: if the people working for Obama are so talented, why can’t any of them count?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030409dnnatkirk.3373a13.html

So former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk is in hot water because of a tax problem.  Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.  Here is how the Dallas Morning News reported it:

“The Senate Finance Committee revealed Monday that Kirk would pay $9,975 in back taxes, mostly stemming from speaking fees he failed to report as income and business-related deductions that weren’t properly documented.”

There are two issues here.  First, why can’t these Obama nominees pay their taxes correctly like the rest of us?  And second, why can’t we finally get serious about tax reform?  After all, the tax code is so complicated, so complex and so confusing that I can almost understand how Kirk might have made the mistake.

Years ago, Ronald Reagan said that the federal tax code is like getting mugged every day of the year.  Isn’t it time we stopped this madness and had real tax reform?  I bet Ron Kirk might even favor that.

-Randy Hill

There is something special going on at the College of Business Administration at Abilene Christian University. And I want to be a part of it.

If there is one word that defines the difference at the business department at ACU it is: entrepreneurship.  ACU now has a full-time entrepreneur-in-residence, Jim Porter.  Jim brings years of business experience, including successfully started two companies and being involved in the merger of 25 others.  As I’ve written before on this blog, innovation is creating or doing something new before there is a market for it.  ACU’s business school has certainly provided a fine example of innovation with its entrepreneur-in-residence concept.

There are even talks around town that Dr. Rick Lytle, the Dean of the College of Business Administration, is exploring the idea of an Entrepreneurial Incubator.  This is a great time for this project since I believe economic downturns are always fertile ground for new innovation and entrepreneurship.

And there are talks that COBA is exploring the possibilities of a Center for Global Ethics and Leadership. That’s a perfect fit since at ACU students are not only taught how to make a profit, but how to make a difference. In fact, students are taught that the two go hand in hand. I was reminded of how special this approach to business education is earlier this year when I was asked to speak at the ACU Leadership Summit:

Randy Hill YouTube Channel:  Hill Speaks on the topic of “Leadership” at ACU Leadership Summit

This is why I’m so proud of my alma mater.  Lots of schools talk about making a difference; my alma mater actually does.

-Randy Hill

Sometimes nice guys do finish first.  That certainly is the case for Bob Hunter.

http://m.reporternews.com/news/2009/feb/21/family-friends-help-open-hunter-welcome-center/

Most of us only dream about the kind of career Bob has had: college official, state representative, husband, father.  The thread that weaves these different aspects of his life together is his love for God and his love for Abilene Christian University.  And so it’s a perfect tribute that ACU opened a new building in his honor: The Hunter Welcome Center.  This past weekend, more than 700 invited guests, including 57 Hunter family members, were on hand for the festivities.  The new building is a $15.7 million 57,000-square-foot facility.  And as someone who was there for the opening, I can assure you it is a beautiful place.

Which is at it should be since Bob and his wife Shirley are beautiful people. As a college administrator, he helped transform his alma mater from a small college into a major university and was the driving force behind innovative ideas like Sing Song. As a state representative, he coordinated passage of the Texas Tuition Equalization Grant program, which has provided more than $1 billion to students to help them attend private colleges in Texas. And as a man, he simply has no equal.  His grace is matched only by his compassion.

This past weekend, I was proud to see Bob honored by the university he has honored so long and so well.

As a young student in the late 1980s, I was always impressed with the little man with such a possitive attitude that I often met as I crossed the campus heading to classes. Soon his optimistic personality began to rub off on me. When I graduated I took with me many things that I had learned durring my time at ACU.  One of those was the possitive attitude that I learned from Bob. Twenty years later, when asked how I am doing, I still tell people: Great! Never good, fine or ok. But great! Why?  Because that’s what Bob always says.

A few years ago I was invited to Austin for a meeting at the Capital with the Govenors office. Before the meeting I decided to stop by Bob’s office and pay him a visit. As I walked in the door I ask if Bob was in. From the back office I heard him say, “I hear a friendly voice.” Aand I thought to myself, “so do I.”

-Randy Hill

I guess my “major” complaint about the sanctions leveled by the NCAA against ACU is the adjective “major.”

How can the NCAA look at the facts and decide these were “major” violations?  A Christmas party for international students?  Letting an athlete borrow a pair of running shoes? Someone getting a pair of socks as a gift at a church party?

This is “major”? No, this is absurd.

Let’s keep some perspective on this:

First, ACU is a Christian institution.  As such, it has close affiliations with many local churches.

Second, churches do charity.  All the time.  If an international student visits a local church, he/she is going to receive some hospitality.
Third, the NCAA rules covering recruiting are not as simple as some might think.  Here is how ACU Athletic Director Jared Mosley described it:

“The one thing I can say, and I’ve said this multiple times and been consistent, it’s a very complex issue, NCAA compliance. So there are opportunities to misinterpret or just not enough steps in your research to find out the exact approach or method in moving forward in certain situations.”
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/feb/15/qa-with-jared-mosley-acu-athletic-director/

So the combination of well-intentioned hospitality with confusing guidelines led to some “major” violations, according to the NCAA.

Here is what is a major violation: when your star quarterback is getting paid by a local backer’s car dealership for a job he doesn’t even do.  That was Rhett Bomar and OU.  And that was a major violation.  Giving out socks at a church Christmas party is anything but major.

Someone at the NCAA needs to learn the difference.

-Randy Hill

I’ve always agreed with Martin Luther King’s statement that the measure of a man is found not in times of comfort but in times of challenge.  I believe that’s true of organizations as well.

Take my alma mater: Abilene Christian University.  Few places mean more to me than ACU.  It’s where I went to school, met friends for life and found the girl of my dreams.  But that’s not to say it’s perfect.  You may have recently read about some problems in the athletic department:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/13/sports/Abilene-Christian-NCAA.php

What’s interesting to me about this story is that ACU comes across in a good light, not a bad one.  ACU investigated itself, turned itself in and even disciplined itself.  And if you look at some of the violations, they certainly don’t seem so bad.  A Christmas party for international athletes who couldn’t return home? Come on.  On some of these violations, the NCAA should be saluting ACU, not sanctioning it.

Even in this challenge, my alma later looks like what it really is: a school that does things right and does the right thing.

-Randy Hill

“Tax cheaters cheat us all, and the [Internal Revenue Service] should enforce our laws to the letter.” So said Senator Tom Daschle a few years ago.  This week, he may be regretting those words.  After admitting he failed to pay $140,00.00 in taxes, Daschle has withdrawn his name as the President’s nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e08a8d8-f234-11dd-9678-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Daschle should have stepped aside.  No one should be rewarded with a plum government job after stiffing the government on that much in taxes.  But in Washington, there’s always more to the story than meets the eye.  There is no way Daschle withdrew on his own.  In fact, as late as Monday night he was fighting back.  So why did he change his mind on Tuesday?

My guess is President Obama told him to step aside.  Obama was the one who promised a break with the old ways of doing business in Washington.  And it was up to him to do the right thing and push Daschle aside.  I’m glad he did.  It was the smart thing to do.  More importantly, it was the right thing to do.

-Randy Hill

There’s an old saying, “the bigger the man, the smaller theoffice.”  I thought of that this week as I was touring the Wal-Mart Headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.  I glimpsed into retiring CEO Lee Scott’s office and was amazed at the simplicity and humble furnishings of it. This is, after all, the world’s largest and most successful company.  And yet the CEO’s office looks similar to the manager’s office at an old Gibsons store.  But then, if you know much about Lee Scott, this shouldn’t surprise you.

During Katrina, Lee sent out a message to all his store managers in the New Orleans area.  “A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level,” he advised. “Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing.”

In the face of a challenge, Lee chose to empower his employees.  What did they do with it?

They reached out to the community,  including a famous case where an employee took a forklift and smashed into a Wal-Mart warehouse to get water supplies for a nearby nursing home. “If government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded,” said a local official during the Katrina aftermath,
“we wouldn’t be in this crisis.”

This is the Wal-Mart way: taking care of business by taking care of people.  I learned that again this week on my tour.  While I was there, Wal-Mart announced pay raises for its employees in a distrubition center.  Incredible.  Here we are in the midst of a recession and yet Wal-Mart has found a way to pay employees even more.

And did you know that Wal-Mart has special pharmacy trailers that are dispatched to fill prescriptions for people in need?  Some times at no charge.  This is a company that does well by doing good.

How do they do all this?  Through an unprecedented distribution system and through effective management.

Lee Scott may be leaving.  But his legacy will remain.  Wal-Mart will continue to be an organization that not only does things right, but does the right thing.

-Randy Hill

Saturday night was not the farewell to the home field of America’s Team.  It was the effort of one man to exploit a once great franchise for his own purposes.

So many great men! So many great moments! So many opportunities for Jerry Jones to grandstand!

If Jerry were the promoter he thinks he is, he would have done a much better job Saturday night. As I flipped back and forth from Channel 33 to the NFL Network, I could not believe that this was happening. The sound was bad, the videos were stale and the entire production was second rate.

Has Jerry Jones lost it?

A few weeks ago I noticed that the Cowboys had hired an auction company to sell Texas Stadium Memorabilia. They sold $245,000 worth of memories. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-stadiumsale_23met.ART.State.Edition2.4a86522.html

I wish we could see what Jerry spent on his ticket and box seat promotion via the Cowboy Hall of Famers.

For all his success, Jerry Jones fails at one of the major tests of leadership: he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.  Someone on his staff should have told him that commemorating Texas Stadium should not have been transformed into a commercial for buying season tickets at the new stadium.  There will be plenty of time for that.  But Saturday night should have been about remembering the past, not selling the future.

Randy Hill

Good question, huh?

No, it’s not fixed but it’s in a lot better than now than it was a year or 2 ago. In my opinion, the core driving force to the economy is the price of oil.

When oil prices are high, we have less money to spend which deeply impacts the economy.  Right now we are on the verge of oil going down to a level that will make the economy surge again rather quickly.  I don’t see oil going up anytime soon.  I think oil will dip down into the $30’s at some point.  It’s been in the $40’s at times during trading even though it’s never settled there.   What we see in oil and gas production are spikes in demand.  And then prices increase to a level that breaks the back of the consumer.  We saw this in the 70’s with Carter.  We were fortunate throughout the Clinton administration, our gas prices were very, very low because of the low price of oil.

This poor economy that we are in started before the Bush administration came into office. There’s no reason to believe the Bush administration caused this.  We had some factors in our global economy that have affected this over the past 8 years.  Before Bush was even elected, oil prices February 2000 started increasing.  Anytime oil prices surge, it puts restraints on our economy.

What’s happened has woke us up and put in an awareness.  All these problems started (housing crunch/financing) is a complete reflection of the price of oil.

American’s economy was humming along in the mid to late 90’s.  Historically the price of oil was very low.  Americans have a strong cash flow because oil and fuel are such an important part of our culture and lifestyle.  Our cars and utilities are some way tied to oil.   When oil prices go up, it puts a crimp in our spending.  From the trucking industry that brings us all of our products to the automotive industry (which is the largest employers in the U.S.), because people stop buying big cars and start buying more efficient cars.  Look, the automotive manufactures don’t have a crystal ball.  They could not predict that oil was going to spike like it did and cause gas to go to $3 and $4 a gallon.  In turn, they built what we as consumers wanted. And for the past 20 years, consumers have wanted large SUVs.  With oil skyrocketing over the last 8-9 months (excluding the last 3 months), the consumer shifted their demand and it impacts the entire economy.

Then you have some who went and bought houses that maxed out their budget and left no room for the increase in oil and gas prices.  Thus started the housing crunch and the demise of the financial institutions that we’ve been seeing lately.  Americans knew what we were doing.  They were buying homes that they could not normally afford because of historically low interest rates and ended up extending themselves far beyond what they could afford.

I do believe we are in the process of a correcting economy.   To me, I think you have to “flush the toilet” on some industries every few years.  Right now we have way too many SUVs in the marketplace.  There are too many products being built by too many factories.  I’m very concerned about this bailout talk of the auto makers (GM, Ford and Chrysler).   Providing them with funding that is not contingent on restructuring is very dangerous.  There is very little chance we would ever get that money back.   Let’s look at GM.  Just 8 months ago GM said they would run out of 2009.  Well here we are at the end of 2008, and they’ve already run out of cash!  The industry has burned through $100 billion this year.  So providing them with another $25 billion is going to help keep them afloat?  I don’t think so.  I think there are some circumstances where you’ve got to let the market correct itself or in other words, you’ve got to flush the economic toilet.

As entrepreneurs we don’t have the luxury of living off of 2-3 years of cash reserves like these major corporations.  We have to make our decisions much quicker.   We just can’t let everyone come to Congress to ask for a handout.  The government is broke.  They are just writing these unlimited checks.  The government is the only company in the world that can write hot checks and just keep writing them!  There’s no accountability.

However, there are times when you have to support an industry to keep them afloat because if you don’t, you will deeply penetrate the economy.  I think the mortgage and financial institutions were key to our economy but they’ve got to get back to loaning money.  If all those foreclosed homes are priced cheaply enough, they should sell immediately.  I just don’t see them doing that with the auto industry.  Look, if you want to sell some cars, try lowering the price 50-60% off the sticker or MSRP!  I realize you might be losing money but you or your dealers sure aren’t making any cash letting them sit on the lot.

Bottom line is I think you will see a much better economy because of these fuel prices.  The pieces are in place because of this recession to keep oil and fuel prices low and they will continue to go down.  The worst thing we could do is have our economy come back without having corrected any of these problems like we’ve seen in the housing or financial industries.  We can’t go back to those practices of loaning money on 10 houses to one individual.   We can’t allow oil to surge on speculation and fear.  Several months ago there was a fear that oil was going to surge to $300 a barrel.   Well, that’s not the case – demand was not there.

Finally, with respect to the energy industries, we have to continue to move forward with renewables.   We cannot let the low oil prices make us forget where we were just 3 months ago.  We have got to encourage and offer incentives to get more into renewable energy.  We also need a plan for renewable electricity.  We have to explore more about natural gas cars.  We have to do that.  If we do that, we won’t have those peaks in demand that impact our economy.

If we don’t let these corrections happen and move forward to looking at renewable energy, then we aren’t putting the shovel down, we just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.

In a few days, I’ll have the last of this 3-part series including thoughts about President-Elect Obama so stay tuned.  If you missed the first part of this series about T. Boone Pickens, click here.

- Randy W. Hill, Texas Entrepreneur

(This is the first of a 3-part series)

I want to start off by saying that T. Boone Pickens is one of our great American entrepreneurs with a heritage of great success.  Over his extensive career, he has shown great leadership. He is an example of true entrepreneurial achievement.

What we have seen over the past 2 years with T. Boone is a fantastic pursuit of a great dream – which is what every entrepreneur has in one way or another. What T. Boone has done with the Pickens Plan and his larger-than-life wind project idea has been very exciting.

As entrepreneurs, we all take risks.  The risk is that we have to get our idea and our concept across to the public so that we can present our idea.  When we do this, we are putting a thought out there for raising support, raising capital, or raising attention to our project.

T. Boone had a multi-level plan to where he was going to build a wind farm, he was going to carry his own power into Dallas-Fort Worth through those transmission lines, and using the same corridor, he was going to carry water from the Panhandle back to the Metroplex.

As an entrepreneur, when you’re putting these ideas out there, you’re taking a risk, very similar to Kenneth Musgrave, one of our great entrepreneurs from Abilene.  Kenneth did the same thing with the Hendrick ranch.  Kenneth was attempting to purchase a large-scale ranch and he was using the media as his promotion.  All of us the media in this way:  to raise capital or attention for our project, to promote our idea.  What Kenneth Musgrave was doing was promoting that he had struck this deal and his intentions were to cut up the property and sell it off – but with the current economic conditions, he was forced to back out of the deal.

On both of these fronts, you have an entrepreneur putting ideas out there but problems came up.  With T. Boone, the credit markets are simply not in a condition to support a large-scale project like he was promoting.  WIth Musgrave, he put his project out there, and he had the interested buyers who wanted a piece of what he had put together, however the financial crisis has put that plan on hold.

The problem with these two projects is not the idea – their ideas are good, but at this time, they are just not going to go forward.  It’s the risk they take.   They put their ideas out there in a very public way.  The risk they take is that their idea is either a great success or it fails, or it just doesn’t work out to the level they had hoped.

It’s the same thing for the entrepreneur wanting to start a donut shop.  He puts some significant money into the equipment needed to make donuts. Then he puts an ad in the paper saying that he’ll be selling donuts on Monday morning.  He is taking a huge risk by doing that – is it going to succeed, fail or just not measure up simply because of negative market conditions?

Such entrepreneurs are great men and are to be commended.  We need more people who are willing to take a risk and put great ideas out there.  The measurement of a great entrepreneur is not the accomplishment itself, but the risk he is willing to take to accomplish great things.  As well, you can always measure success by how an entrepreneur picks himself up when he fails.

Next in this series, we’ll talk more specifically about the economy.

- Randy W. Hill, Texas Entrepreneur