Weekend 210.0

Bike ChainFirst ride of 2012! It was mostly an excuse to test the installation of a Brooks Flyer Saddle. I rode to the post office and stopped for coffee.

I had a copy of the Wall Street Journal in the basket which I retrieved from the end of the driveway before my ride. I thought about taking a picture of it in the basket and titling this post, “Green & Pro Business” but my legs felt like rubber and the camera was upstairs (awful, right???). I did commit to stamping correspondence with a bike to indicate it was delivered to the post office using ‘my old rubber legs’ and now a trip to the Great American Stamp Store (local retail) is in the offing.

The bike itself though is a good pro business metaphor (a contemporary version of the pencil) and it all begins with a humble and brilliant artisan like Mike Flanigan of A.N.T. and an idea.

But there is also another dynamic at work in this metaphor and that is the venerable history of Brooks England which has endured since 1866 despite being subjected to the creative destruction of capitalism.

It’s a tough lesson but prior success (market share, profitability, etc.) doesn’t guarantee survivability in perpetuity. I love Lehmann Gross Bahn but a myriad of factors resulted in their decline. And the government could have intervened with a bail out or offered subsidies BUT none of that would have offset changing market conditions. Additionally, precious resources would have been restricted from finding their most efficient and productive use despite some period of displacement.

Unfortunately what persists in this country now is a perversion of free markets (crony capitalism) where government is choosing winners and losers for political gain (self-preservation). The theater is cute – Warren’s secretary at the SOTU – but all sorts of companies are benefiting from these government-driven perversions (see related) and it’s a ‘stick in the spokes’ to honest and hard-working entrepreneurs (job creators).

This post seems SO juvenile but I’ve spoken at length with college educated people who were never taught common sense economics.

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