Article Goes Hot on LinkedIn: “A Critical Attribute to Look For When Hiring”

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A Critical Attribute to Look For When Hiring

By: Alan Walsh, Owner, Huntington Consultancy

www.huntingtonconsultancy.com

info@huntingtonconsultancy.com

(714) 465-2749

I’ve hired a lot of people in my career. My success rate has improved substantially over time. There’s much to be said for learning and seasoning from experience.

Of course one must evaluate the candidate’s specific skill & talent sets, and background checks will sometimes (not always) reveal useful information, but then we get down to the qualitative factors – those elements of a candidate’s makeup that signal a likely winner.

Much has been written about this, and employers look for many different things. Interviewers ask a variety of questions to draw people out. Tests abound for the same purpose. But over the years, when taking into account all available input, I’ve found that one factor rises to the top as a strong signal of a candidate’s suitability.

For me, a candidate’s CURIOSITY has been a very telling personal attribute which has served me well in separating the “wheat from the stalks”.

I always look for people who are naturally curious. A wonderful set of traits usually comes along as a package deal.

Many humans aren’t very curious. They move through their lives in a rather mechanical manner, doing the things required to survive and not spending a great deal of time observing or assessing the world around them. Their work tends to reflect this posture.

Then, there are the curious. It seems to be built into their DNA. They’re forever looking around and questioning the world they observe. It seems to be so ingrained in them that they’re not even aware of their differentiation from the rest of humanity. It’s not that they’re cynical and forever challenging the world. On the contrary, they tend to be very positive and eager to learn.

• The curious are alert, attentive, and observant.
• They think for themselves, and accept little at face value.
• They’re self-confident and independent; which is not to say that they’re poor social fits. That has nothing to do with it.
• Because of their eagerness to learn, they’re usually brighter and more knowledgeable than their less curious peers.
• Their work reflects a tendency to select the paths and methodologies that make the most sense and produce the best results.
• They tend to communicate along clear, rational lines.
• They find weaknesses and fix them.
• They identify opportunities others can’t see.
• They usually require less motivation or direction than their peers.
• They want to expand their minds and grow.
• They tend to be fun and interesting to be around.

There are exceptions to any situation, and certainly not all curious people possess this entire kit-bag of personal attributes; but the trend has been so strong in my hiring experience that it stands out as my most reliable single qualitative measure.

Of course, I’m not referring to those who are forever annoyingly asking “Why”, like a two-year old. Those people just have maturity issues and should be avoided.

When I think of the quintessential curious person, I think of Michelangelo. He was raised in the home of a minor bureaucrat of no particular note, and he spent most of his life living on the financial & political edge at the fickle mercies of the Church, and yet his curiosity led him in directions that culminated in his being recognized along with Leonardo Da Vinci as a consummate Renaissance man; with accomplishments that span the ages.

We can’t all rise to the level of Michelangelo, but I’ve observed that the curious tend to have the same “fire in their bellies” that drove him. They tend to surprise pleasantly.

The curious don’t fit in everywhere. Many entrenched bureaucrats want “drones”, and consider the curious to be annoying or threatening. I’m not one of those managers. Of course, the curious find such bureaucracies choking, and usually don’t stay for very long.

If you’re a hiring manager who shares my vision of what constitutes a valuable employee, I highly recommend that you include a “curiosity assessment” in your portfolio of interviewing tools. You won’t be sorry.

Why the U.S. Government Hates -and Fears- Gold

By Alan Walsh

The U.S. Government hates Gold because it serves as a clear, unambiguous, and constant sign of their fiscal irresponsibility.

U.S. currency used to be issued by the U.S. Government, and was backed by Gold. You could literally trade-in your dollars for Gold. Then, the Federal Reserve system was created, the dollar was disconnected from Gold, and the U.S. government stopped issuing currency. To really “seal the deal”, the government even outlawed individual ownership of Gold for awhile and forced citizens to sell it to them at a fixed price they set; then they raised the “official” price of Gold, devaluing every dollar citizens held by about 40%.

The Federal Reserve (also referred to as the U.S. central banking system, or central bank) is not a government agency; it’s a private bank, owned by other big banks, and run by people from those banks. When the U.S. Government wants additional money to spend, it buys it at face value ($100 for a $100 bill, for instance) from the Federal Reserve; which creates the currency. That’s why your dollars say “Federal Reserve Note” on them. In order to buy the currency, the U.S. government goes into debt  via Treasury Notes & Bills, etc. The government then spends that money.

Why did the U.S. government do this? So politicians could avoid accountability, buy votes, get reelected, increase their power, and transfer the effect of their spending to the future. This is how the federal government got to be the monster it is today. Under the old system, the government could only spend as much as it held in gold-backed dollars. If they wanted to spend more, they had to tax citizens. Citizens don’t like higher taxes, and get upset. Politicians lose jobs. Government was held accountable. The new Federal Reserve system removes this nasty inconvenience by letting the politicians just go buy currency from the Federal Reserve, creating new debt in the process; and government debt is a claim on the productivity of the nation – therefore it is your debt. Government doesn’t produce; it only consumes – your wealth. The income tax was created at the same time as the Federal Reserve system to pay for this debt.

As government buys more dollars from the Federal Reserve (and creates more debt in the process), it increases the number of dollars in circulation; thus creating inflation – plus damaging boom & bust cycles in the economy – plus interest expense on the debt. This is where Gold becomes very annoying to them. Gold, like any other commodity, adjusts in price with inflation and glaringly points it out. As the number of dollars in circulation goes up, the price of Gold rises.  People see their purchasing power in dollars go down, so they trade them for Gold; which holds its purchasing power in times of inflation and serves as alternative money. Government doesn’t want you to notice their little shell game, and they don’t want you to stop using and holding their inflationary dollars, so they hate Gold.

Our government, and other governments who play the same shell game, try to control the price of Gold and hold it artificially down through surreptitious trading activity in league with major financial firms. They try to send you false signals about their inflationary borrow & spend activity by artificially holding the cost of Gold down. If the price of Gold is low, everything must be okay, right? Wrong! Very, very wrong!

We’ve now reached a point where government borrowing and spending is so extreme that they can’t artificially hold Gold down to the price level they would like anymore.  Thus, Gold is trading near $1,700.00 per ounce. Many experts argue that if the government wasn’t surreptitiously intervening in the market to hold the price of Gold down, it would be trading for $3,000 or more.  Regardless, the rise in the price of Gold is a clear and unambiguous signal that government spending is out of control. The effect of this is to undermine peoples’ faith in the dollar and our government.  That makes it hard for government to keep up their shell game. Their borrowing & spending has also created a debt that the income tax can’t begin to cover – plus those nasty and growing interest obligations.

Sober people have also questioned how much of the Gold the government holds it actually owns anymore. They suspect that the government’s secret Gold sales to flood the market and hold the market price of Gold down have been so extensive that very little of the Gold they hold is actually owned by them anymore. Large Gold sales usually don’t involve physical transfer. An electronic record is created to note the new ownership. Therefore the government may be sitting on a large cache of Gold that “we the people” don’t own anymore. Perhaps this is partly why the price of Gold has risen despite government’s best efforts to hold it down. Maybe they’ve run out of Gold to sell. We can’t know for sure, because the government hides this activity behind a thick wall of secrecy. But bits and pieces of info leak out now and then, and they paint a dismal picture. Investigators have even uncovered documents created by central bankers for central bankers on how to execute market intervention between each other to hold the Gold price down.

As the government shell game grows, people start paying attention, and realizing how they’re being hosed by the government’s inflationary, destructive borrow and spend policy. If more Americans understood how our monetary policy works, and what government’s doing to them, they’d be screaming. Government does everything it can to keep us in ignorance.

Faith in the U.S. Dollar has been so severely undermined that other nations, who are not so naive in these matters, are seriously talking about abandoning the dollar as the “world currency”, a beneficial status which the U.S. has enjoyed since the end of World War II. If that happens, investment coming into the U.S. will decline and government will find it increasingly difficult to sell or roll-over their debt; China being our largest current creditor. Then the U.S. will hit a “fiscal cliff” that makes the current one look like a ride in the park.

The U.S. national debt is now over $16 Trillion dollars; over $52,000 per person, and approx. 125% of gross domestic product (gross domestic product being our productivity as a nation – your productivity – the productivity our government taxes you on) – a new record by far. The current government’s policies alone added $8 Trillion to that debt in the last four years. Then there’s the interest on all that debt. Budget projections indicate that the national debt could hit $20 Trillion in the next couple years if we keep going the way we are. Other nations are starting to look at the U.S. like Greece; a bankrupt financial disaster. We’re mortgaging our nation to entities like China, who are not exactly our friends. The current administration’s indebted the nation to a greater extent than any other, but they’re not the only perpetrators. This has been going for decades since the new system was created. It’s not a Democrat or Republican problem – it’s a national tragedy.

Gold at $1,700 an ounce sends this signal clearly – which government fears and hates.

The government wants you to hold their inflationary dollars. The Federal Reserve does too; and bad-mouths Gold. The finance houses who surreptitiously work with the government to control the price of Gold tell you that Gold is an unproductive asset, and you should hold dollars instead; while they quietly buy it for their own accounts. They’re all propagandizing you to keep their shell game going. I remember one time a couple of years ago when one of the major financial houses (JP Morgan I believe) was publicly telling it’s clients to sell Gold, while privately buying it for their own account.

The national tragedy goes even deeper. The Federal Reserve holds secret meetings where it shares inside information with the finance houses who help it; information that they use to make millions and billions on the markets from you unknowing investors. If you think the equity & debt markets are free and open, think again. It’s all manipulated.

Let’s talk about one of the many ways in which your government shafts you with this shell game – Social Security. You are required to make tax payments into Social Security. These payments are made with post-income tax dollars (you’re first income-taxed on the income you pay the social security tax with). The government spends the social security revenues (money) and replaces them in the social security trust fund with government debt instruments; thus, the government spends your social security contributions as it sees fit, and replaces them with new government debt. Of course, government debt is a claim on the productivity of the country – your productivity – and therefore represents a new debt you as citizens take on. This is important to note, because government spends your social security contributions, and creates a new debt owed by you as a citizen (another tax) for payment of benefits to you. Then, when you receive your benefits, up to 85% of them are subject to income tax depending on your filing status and how much income from other sources you have coming in.

To recap, the government first taxes the income you pay social security taxes with (income tax), then taxes you for social security (social security tax), then spends the money and replaces it with new debt (a new claim on your productivity, or tax), and then taxes you on your benefits (income tax). That’s three taxes on the money you put into social security, plus the social security tax itself. Of course, the government must pay interest on the new debt they created (another claim on your productivity, or tax), so really you pay five taxes; and your contributions are spent now for anything the government wants. Most citizens think the government is taking their money and putting it into a social security trust fund (savings account) to pay your benefits. Nope! That money’s gone. They spent it and replaced it with debt – debt that you owe as citizens.

The government says that your benefits money is safe because it’s invested in instruments guaranteed by the U.S. government. What they really mean is that your benefit claims are backed by their ability to tax you; or create new debt that you owe as a citizen; and that’s the only way those benefits are going to be paid. They just keep spending the tax money as it comes in, and pass the buck for social security obligations to future generations. Neat trick huh?

Additionally, “people retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It’s a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.”  The government absorbed all the money you put in, plus the employer contributions, and you won’t even get back what you alone put in; let alone all the interest you could have earned on that money over the years. This is what your government has done for you. Isn’t it great? What a deal!

Your wealth, purchasing power, and financial stability are being undermined every day by the government’s borrow & spend shell game, the underhanded dealings of the Federal Reserve and it’s finance house cronies, and very likely the sale of our nation’s Gold reserves (your Gold reserves) to manipulate the markets and fool you. Even your most basic “protections” are being undermined by government subterfuge. Gold serves as a clear warning, and an alternative.

That’s why the U.S. government hates -and fears- Gold.

Be informed.

Learn More About the U.S. Government Monetary Policy:

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/monetary-policy-a-primer/

Other Suggested Reading:

America Has Become a Pinata

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/america-has-become-a-pinata/

Free Articles on Business, Economy, and Career – Primarily Targeted to Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners

For some time now I’ve been posting articles on Slideshare primarily targeted to Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners. There have been many views, but the real indicator of value has been the 1,000+ downloads readers have done.  Feel free to browse and find articles of value to you.

A Dummy’s Guide to the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.  She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.  Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger; thereby granting her customers loans.

Word gets around about Helga’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga’s bar.  Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer; the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Helga’s gross sales volume increases massively.  A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga’s borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.  At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions; and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.

These “securities” then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AA Secured Bonds” are really debts of unemployed alcoholics.  Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga’s bar.  He so informs Helga, who then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons.  But being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Helga cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.  The bar closes and Helga’s 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.  The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.  The suppliers of Helga’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.  They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations.  Her beer supplier is taken over by a venture capital asset management firm; which immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though – the bank, the brokerage houses, and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings-attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who’ve never been in Helga’s bar.

Now do you understand?

Interesting Facts About U.S. Small Businesses

• There are more than 22 million small businesses in America.

• Small business accounts for 99% of all U.S. businesses.

• Small businesses employ 53% of the private sector workforce and contribute over half of the nation’s private gross domestic product.

The Six Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

 

In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it’s time for you to “be strategic.”

Whatever that means.

If you find yourself resisting “being strategic,” because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you’re not alone. Every leader’s temptation is to deal with what’s directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you’ll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you’re on is leading off a cliff.

This is a tough job, make no mistake. “We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It’s hard to be a strategic leader if you don’t know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.

After two decades of advising organizations large and small, my colleagues and I have formed a clear idea of what’s required of you in this role. Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:

Link to Full Article

Ex-Im Bank Offering Revolving Credit Line to Small Business Exporters

More small business exporters throughout the United States will have access to revolving credit, thanks to a new product unveiled by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.Through Global Credit Express, small business exporters may be eligible for a revolving line of credit, up to $500,000 for six to 12 months. During the program’s pilot phase, an initial $100 million in financing will be made available through a select number of lenders nationwide.

Following the pilot, the bank will evaluate the results of this direct loan program and determine whether to increase the available amount. The product is designed to finance the business of exporting rather than specific export transactions.Small business exporters interested in applying for financing through GCE can contact the bank by calling (800) 565-3946 and selecting option 2.

Proof of U.S. Greater Depression

Proof of U.S. Greater Depression

Courtesy of Jeff Nielson

It has become increasingly difficult to engage in credible economic analysis, especially with respect to the U.S. economy. The problem: ever more limited sources of uncorrupted data, while the farcical “official statistics” have long since been totally divorced from the real world.

Fortunately we have been presented with some raw, uncorrupted data which demonstrates in conclusive terms that the U.S. economy is literally shriveling before our eyes: a 21^st century economy with plummeting energy consumption, and even a declining use of electricity.

As I was sifting through all of Bloomberg’s propaganda on the latest U.S. trade numbers (and trying to latch onto a few facts), I came across one very peculiar passage:

…American companies also bought more consumer household items, automobiles and parts, and crude oil from overseas.

Exports increased 0.7 percent to $178.8 billion, boosted by record sales of petroleum to buyers overseas. That caused the trade gap excluding petroleum to widen even more than the deficit overall…

The great U.S. economy, the largest oil-glutton in the history of humanity (by several multiples) is now a “net energy exporter”. How can this be possible? The U.S. economy has contracted so severely (already) that the only way that U.S. refineries can sell all the petroleum products they produce is to sell them to the growing economies of “emerging market” nations.

Reflecting the broad-based collapse of the U.S. economy, these refineries are now exporting all categories of petroleum products: diesel, jet fuel, and even gasoline are now being exported in large quantities, month-after-month by U.S. refineries. Recall that it was only four, short years ago that many American politicians were alarmed by the crisis of the “lack of U.S. refining capacity”. No new refineries have been constructed in the U.S. in more than 30 years, and at that time those refineries were straining to meet the demand of solely the U.S. domestic market. With that domestic market collapsing, these refineries are now straining to find enough foreign buyers to unload all of their inventories.

Given these facts alone, it is utterly absurd for the U.S. government to pretend that the U.S. economy is growing. Note that the government claims that most of this growth is occurring in agriculture and manufacturing – both very energy-intensive industries. There’s no doubt that the energy-intensive agriculture sector is thriving, a result of a growing global “appetite” and Wall Street-induced shortages in most commodities. So with the large U.S. agriculture sector gobbling up more energy than ever, what does that say about the rest of the (decaying) U.S. economy?

Let us not forget that the U.S. population continues to grow. More people using much, much, less energy; and this is called a “growing economy”? Absurd. Even more absurd, this steadily growing population has been using much less electricity, going back to around 2007.

Mark Lundeen provided a very detailed analysis of the consumption of U.S. electricity in a recent commentary. It shows U.S. electrical consumption peaking in approximately 2006, and then beginning a distinct decline starting in 2007. Yes, power demand has “bounced back” somewhat from the worst of the collapse – but at levels still more than 3% lower than in 2007. Put another way, the supposed “U.S. economic recovery” has only resulted in roughly half of that lost demand being restored.

 

 

 

This minimal boost in electrical demand reflects nothing more than pent-up demand from the increase in population which has taken place since 2007, and in no way is suggestive of any economic growth. And we must keep in mind that this is taking place in a climate of ultra-insane monetary policy: interest rates permanently frozen at 0%. Even with this maximum stimulus, the dying U.S. economy is unable to come close to maintaining its level of demand for electricity.

We must also never forget that all of this decline in energy and electricity consumption comes after the largest/most reckless fiscal stimulus as well. The U.S., with by far the world’s largest national deficit (even using the absurd, official number), has not yet begun the fiscal tightening being attempted in most other Western nations (with the notable exception of Canada).

What happens when this dying economy actually turns off the taps with all of this “easy money” from the government (which the U.S. government obviously cannot afford)? If the most insane/extreme fiscal and monetary stimulus in the history of the global economy has produced nothing but further economic decay, what happens when this unsustainable stimulus ceases to be sustained?

The obvious answer to that question is a Soviet Union-like economic implosion, assuming that reckless money-printing doesn’t produce the nightmare of hyperinflation first.

How sick is the U.S. economy? Bloomberg was recently trumpeting the news that construction of “multi-family units” in the U.S. housing market (the low end of the market) was rising to the same level as in 2008. Yes, and everyone can remember what a wonderful year that 2008 was for U.S. housing. And this is the good news?

Actually it is. Construction of single-family units remain at all-time lows since they first began gathering such data on the U.S. housing market. Thus we are to believe that the U.S. economy is growing and producing new, net jobs each month with plummeting energy consumption, declining usage of electricity, and with the propagandists cheering the housing market because things are now only as bad as they were in 2008.

Again, what happens when the unsustainable stimulus can no longer be sustained?

This is a dying economy in the midst of a Greater Depression. Even with B.S. Bernanke’s permanent 0% interest rates (something which would have been totally unthinkable just four years earlier), this monetary defibrillator cannot continue to feign “life” in this economic corpse. The moment that fiscal tightening inevitably begins, the full brunt of the U.S.’s Greater Depression will bludgeon the American people – and hopefully (finally) awaken then from their terminal apathy.

Any further pretensions of economic growth and job-creation can now only be regarded as absurd and transparent fiction. The world’s great energy glutton is claiming a robust “economic recovery”without using any energy. The statistical charlatans at work for the U.S. government can pretend there is positive GDP growth. They can pretend there is positive jobs growth. But they cannot pretend to consume energy.

There was never any “economic reckoning” for the U.S. economy following the economic collapse which began (in earnest) in 2007. Reckless money-printing (the most reckless in history); reckless fiscal spending (the most reckless in history); and absurd statistical lies (the largest in history) have merely provided a coat of whitewash over top of this economic train-wreck…and now the paint is beginning to peel.

President Obama Doesn’t Know the First Thing About Economics

By Iain Murray

Published July 16, 2011 | FoxNews.com

 

As the Oscar buzz surrounding actress Meryl Streep keeps growing — thanks to her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, it’s worth remembering one of the real Iron Lady’s most famous observations: that any housewife could manage the British economy. 

President Obama should heed that advice, and realize that economy begins at home. Unfortunately, his recent statements on the economy give little reason for hope on that front.

The president’s press conference on Monday epitomized the “do something” nature of his administration. He wants to do something about … well, everything—from getting more kids into college to fighting global warming (although the latter is less evident these days, at least in public). The trouble is that he thinks he needs more and more of our money to do it, so he wants any budget deal to include tax rises.

Let’s take the example of college education grants, which the president suggested should be funded by an increase in taxes on millionaires like himself. The president’s budget request for 2012 contains an allocation of $36 billion for increased Pell grants for students from poor backgrounds to attend college. That’s out of an entire federal budget request of $3.7 trillion, which makes Pell grant expenditure just 1 percent of the total.

Looking at that from the viewpoint of Mrs. Thatcher’s proverbial housewife, we can compare it to the median household income of about $46,000, which, after taxes, is about $3,000 a month. 

The size of the problem that President Obama singles out as requiring tax increases is equivalent to a household budget shortfall of $30 a month. A competent economic manager should be able to deal with that sort of problem by tightening his or her belt elsewhere. The president’s seeming incapability to contemplate this demonstrates just how out of control the federal spending machine is.

Link to Full Article