President Barack Obama’s  comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, came in swift response to a New York Times report, which reported employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. The figure, from the New York state comptroller, drew prominent news coverage.

“Outrageous.”

That’s President Barack Obama’s one-word reaction to a report that Wall Street employees got more than $18 billion in bonuses last year.

Said Obama: “That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful.”

The president said he and new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will have direct conversations with corporate leaders to make the point.

Obama said there is a time for corporate leaders to make profits and get paid bonuses but now is “not that time.”

“Outrageous” is precisely the word. The same people who two months ago came to Congress with hats in hand and took a boatload of taxpayer money are now doling out billions in “bonuses”? Bonuses? Aren’t you supposed to get a bonus when you do something well?

More:
Obama slams outrageous Wall Street bonuses

OK, here’s your pop quiz of the week. The terms: inflation, recession, deflation and depression. Are they economic terms or are they psychological terms?

Answer: When you let them operate together as the “little voice” between your ears, they become the same thing and you lose. The key phrase is, “when you let them.”

It is no secret that in any difficult economic period, a lot of people get hurt and some people get very rich. Either way, it is the same economy, but a different psychology. The question is, Which person are you going to be?

Let’s look at the terms and see how they apply.

Inflation: How many times have you been overconfident, or even arrogant? What happens? Sooner or later, like an asset with value pumped out of proportion, the bubble bursts.

Correction: Stay humble and connected to clients, associates, friends and their needs. Continue to always serve first.

Deflation: Ever been disappointed? Not gotten the outcome you wanted? All your effort into a deal goes for naught when your prospect chooses another vendor or alternative. The money in your bank account is deflating. Do not rest on the laurels of yesterday. The best way to keep from deflating is to keep inflating through nonstop promotion, serving and selling. Keeping the pipeline and your daily calendar filled with revenue-generating activities keeps your energy up.

Recession: Even though the government is undecided about whether this is happening or not, you and I know it’s old news. How about you? Ever feel like pulling back? Ever get tired of doing the same old thing? Ever have your energy level and passion level recede? And when it gets bad enough, have you ever felt like going back to bed and turning the electric blanket up to “womb” and forgetting about it? If you said no, you are lying. We have been there more than once. Now we are talking Depression.

The No. 1 strategy to stave off all of these little voices and economic conditions is the same. It’s called Little Voice Mastery. It is gaining control of the war between your ears that takes you on an emotional roller-coaster ride every time you watch the market swing or hear the next politician or economist profess their confusing and alarmist rhetoric.

There are more opportunities than ever. Weak competition is getting eliminated. That’s good for you and me because those of us who continue to educate and train on how to sell, how to communicate, how to recruit awesome teams and mostly how to manage our own emotions and “little voice” dialogue will WIN and snap up huge chunks of market share.

It’s happening already. But it’s really up to you.

So here is my list of the Six Ways You Can Go Down With the Economy (If You Want To!):

1. Stay glued to the news. You can be like people watching a natural disaster and letting the “spin” of gloom and doom drive their little voice crazy, or you can focus even harder on doing the right things for your income: training, selling, promoting, contacting, expanding.
2. Stay confused. You can allow yourself to operate in a fog when it comes to money, economics and income. The subject of money used to be simple. Once it got fractionalized, fiat-ized and politicized, it got confusing. Learn to read a financial statement. Master the process of sales and exchange. Know the difference between a real asset and a liability. Learn how to create real income in any economy.
3. Believe you cannot sell or you don’t have to sell. You can be deluded that you do not have to sell to be successful. That is a lie. The Small Business Administration said on April 22, 2008, that 82 percent of all small businesses formed in 2008 will fold by 2012. (That was before the credit crunch!) The biggest fear for anyone in business is that no one will show up, call or buy and that income will evaporate. That is a real possibility unless you know how to sell. P.T. Barnum said it pretty well: “Without promotion, something terrible happens—NOTHING!” People struggle financially, not because of lack of hard work or good products, but because they do not know how to sell, how to raise capital without going to a bank, or how to market themselves. Whether it is selling products, ideas, recruiting or obtaining funds, the skill is the same. Learn it!
4. Look for quick fixes instead of mastering your “little voice.” Before, everyone was looking for a way to get rich quick. Now, everyone is looking for an escape hatch. It’s the same issue—believing that there is a silver bullet to every challenge or problem. The best investment you can make in yourself and your team is to master the little voice in your head that either drives you to success or to depression. Seek books, audios, teachers and mentors that can teach you how to drive toward success. It will not only improve your income, it will change your life. It is the single best investment.
5. Blame Wall Street, the government or bankers. If I have learned one thing in all my years of personal development, it’s that when I blame others for my situation, I lose. Be clear: Public Enemy No. 1 is not those guys—it’s your little voice! It’s the one that doubts you. It’s the one that doesn’t want to take responsibility. It’s the one that did not want to spend the money or time on training when you should have. It’s the one that is afraid. As my friend Robert Kiyosaki says, “Poor people look to government, middle-class people look to the banks and rich people focus on their own businesses.” And business is a full-contact sport.
6. Believe the government or the Federal Reserve will fix everything. Interesting thought, considering they are the ones that orchestrated the mess. Fed chairmen, presidential candidates, treasury officials, politicians—it’s like scrambling for deck chairs on the Titanic! Every business owner knows that to succeed you have to take control of your own life. You cannot change the economy, oil prices, the value of stock or a president’s agenda. But you can control your income and your lifestyle. You can control your response to your environment. You can choose how to play the situation. You can stay confused and stunned or take some additional advice from our friend P.T. Barnum: “Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business.”

Regardless of your economic condition, you can choose not to allow the economic condition to become your psychological condition. Be awesome.

Blair Singer is a trainer, speaker and creator of SalesDogs, a methodology that offers sales and communication success, and has helped thousands increase their income worldwide.

View post:
Don?t Believe Everything You Hear

By Marcia Griffin

The whole financial world seems to be in turmoil, but any superficial analysis of the problem seems to come up with one reason for this chaos – bad debt.

Bad debt is not only the sum total of debt but also the type of debt – risky debt, debt that can’t be collected on – and if we dig further it seems that banks and lending institutions have been allowing customers to borrow more than they should have. In turn consumers have become addicted to debt and now the crunch has come.

So the lessons are there – really tough ones, and as consumers and business leaders know there are all sort of ratios that guide debt management. But it has not prevented some major meltdowns.

As consumers there is very little advice available about debt. Is that because it is in the interests of financial institutions and businesses to encourage spending and not to warn about over-exposure to debt?

You could say “buyer beware” – but looking at the level of consumer debt it is apparent that the consumer has not been sufficiently aware and those buy now, pay no interest advertisements continue not only to go to air but also to work.

It seems as a society we are addicted to so many must-have items that we simply continue to live above our means, borrow beyond our means and are beholden to institutions who are doing the same thing!

The adage from Robert Kiyosaki to borrow only for assets and cash flow seems very sound in these times – we just need to be clear about the true value of the assets.

There are some truly sad stories that emerge in such difficult times, and it is so easy to be caught in the debt trap. But I feel as consumers we need to seek better value and, without wanting to sound like a total puritan, put the brakes on unnecessary expenditure.

For business the same principles should apply, but be careful not to cut down in areas that add value to your business. I hear CEOs say “we will need to cut marketing, cut people, cut training”, but I think we need to cut waste and get very clear about what we need to stop spending on and what we should be investing in.

It can be a great mistake for a business to slash its marketing budget; a bit like a consumer cutting down on healthy food.

Many well run businesses can use this time to gain market share as poorly run businesses do not survive tough times!

As consumers and business leaders, we simply need to become more discriminating in our spending, making sure we get value for our dollar and that we only cut back on the high risk areas in business and unnecessary items as consumers.

The world is not about to stop, but these are times for great lessons and clear thinking.

More here:
What is your debt appetite?

~ Robert Kiyosaki

What do higher gas prices mean? From a macro view, it means the end of the Industrial Age and the beginning of the Information Age. So businesses that operate in an Industrial Age context, such as airlines and auto manufacturers, are hurting.Higher gas prices also mean the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. A dollar means a lot more to a person making $50,000 a year than a person making $500,000. So when a gallon of gas goes from $3 to $4, the dollar increase hits lower income people harder. A dollar increase means people who once drove their car to work now ride the bus or train. For these people, a $1 increase in the price of gas can mean a decrease in their standard of living.

For entrepreneurs, higher gas prices mean you have to become a better entrepreneur. For example, if your company produced one pizza per hour in 2007, you’d better be producing 10 pizzas per hour by 2009. And not only do you have to produce 10 pizzas per hour, but you also have to sell 10 pizzas per hour. Simply buying a faster pizza-making machine or hiring more pizza makers won’t cut it. 

This means you need to become a better leader of people. If you have workers who rate a five on a scale of one to 10, you must inspire them to become sevens or eights. This may require further training, demotion or termination. 

In the Industrial Age, workers came to expect higher pay for seniority, loyalty and longevity–regardless of productivity. And older workers were valued. In the Information Age, if older workers’ speed and skills don’t keep up with the accelerating pace of our times, seniority, loyalty and longevity may become liabilities. Steady performance may be a liability if increased performance is required. There is a difference between employees working for a one-pizza-an-hour organization and an organization operating at a 10-pizzas-per-hour pace.

If you, as the small-business owner, have Industrial Age values, then you’re the liability. If you have Industrial Age ideas, you put your workers at risk. Higher gas prices mean you and your organization must do much more for much less. You must become a bolder leader, not a better follower.

In my organization, higher gas prices have caused us to use videoconferencing more and airline travel less. Higher gas prices have pushed us to expand through franchise owners instead of more employees. Higher gas prices have moved us to collaborate more and compete less. In other words, higher gas prices have helped make my company richer, because higher gas prices forced me to become a better entrepreneur. What do higher gas prices do for you?

Here is the original:
The Price of Gas