Stage Four: Grasping For Salvation!

Stage four of the decline epidemic is defined as grasping for salvation. The acts of the desperate, which can take on many possible forms. Like betting a the recovery of a nation on unproven technology,(green energy?), pinning hopes on untested strategy, relying upon the success of a splashy new product, or seeking game changing policy. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar. Seeking a savior CEO, expounding on the rhetoric of "revolution", or in the very late and desperate stages, seeking buyouts for financial rescue. Is anyone else finding this terminology familiar? It sounds like the liberal playbook to me. Truth be told, history has shown these attempts are more likely to perpetuate the Stage 4 decline, not reverse it.

Leadership insists the path to a healthy company or country demands you....Breath. Calm yourself. Think! Focus! Aim! Take one shot at a time, and follow the core values and principles that made you great in the first place.What we are trying to do now is like attempting to gain control of a boat that's going in circles, in a lake that's going dry! Our core values have eroded, that in turn has left us susceptible to infection. Boy are we infected! Let me use an example out of today's news to highlight exactly how unaware those in power are.......

Washington is calling for BP to not pay dividends to their shareholders in order to insure they have funds to finance the oil spill cleanup. Sounds okay on the surface, and almost makes sense, until you walk through the long term effects. BP shareholders rely upon those dividends as income, many pension funds, retirees, union employees, etc bank on that dividend to remain solvent. So should they fail to pay their promised earnings, the stock will be less desirable, possibly forcing the company into bankruptcy. Then the burden of the cleanup will fall back on those taxpayers, instead of a profitable dividend paying company. BP is already on the hook, don't throw a struggling company treading water an anchor. Let them recover and pay for the accident out of future profits. The same applies to the chastising of BP for trying to protect their image and reassure stockholders they will survive this with an ad campaign. It's best for everyone financially that BP survives this and holds up their end financially. While it makes for great sound bytes for future campaigns, it does nothing for America, and is politically self serving. Not a desired quality of leadership, corporate or political. Basically Washington is trying to remove the mop and bucket from the clean up crew.

God Bless!
Capt. Bill