Entrepreneurial Spirit in Action
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
I spent most of my formal working life in small family business. Our operations were polar opposite predatory corporate practices.
We abhorred their way of doing things. We believed honesty and other responsible practices were good business. Imagine that! We never exploited or cheated anyone, not on my watch.
Being privately owned, not public, made things easier – no Wall Street analysts or stockholders to be accountable to, just ourselves, including stock-owning employees.
We believed doing the right thing is its own reward. It also proved a good way to keep a very cyclical service business going until retiring.
In looking back, I wouldn’t change a responsible thing we did – mistakes wishing we hadn’t made indeed, wrongdoing not at all.
Good parents and Wharton never taught me to lie, cheat, exploit and do whatever it takes for maximum profit-making.
Through the years, our business changed with the times – from the 1960s through the 90s, including coming up with important profit-making ideas at times, the equivalent of new product development by the big boys.
Russian Mayor Andrey Tatarinov has entrepreneurial ideas, ccording to RT, quoting him saying:
“I have commanded that the town administration works through the issue of copyrighting the word ‘Novichok’ as a brand name for a line of household cleaning products” – not what municipal governments usually get involved in.
With attribution to Colgate-Palmolive’s Ajax, maybe the town could promote the product as “Stronger Than Dirt,” or perhaps “Armed with Novichok.”
According to Tatarinov, “(n)o one knew about (the town of Shikhany, Russia) before they started this promotion campaign.”
He referred to UK media reports, falsely calling Shikhany the location of a secret Russian military Novichok nerve agent producing facility. None exists.
No military-grade nerve agent of any kind is produced by the Russian Federation, none used to poison Yulia and Sergey Skripal in Salisbury, Britain.
On contact, the stuff kills in minutes. They’re alive, Yulia discharged from hospitalization, Sergey improving toward when he’ll be fully recovered.
Tatarinov said Western media wrongfully criticized his town. “There are reporters from newspapers and TV channels,” he explained, adding:
“But we are not very talkative people and also we have nothing to say except for the fact that there is nothing like this Novichok in our town.”
On Friday, RT said the “Russian copyright agency Rospatent said that it had received five applications to register the Novichok brand name for alcoholic and soft drinks and also for perfume.”
A city of Ulyanovsk farmer is marketing Novichok branded, sunflower oil, RT explained – whatever it takes to make a buck or ruble.
Who’d have thought a nerve agent able to kill on contact could become a popular name for consumer products.
Ingenuity shows up in many ways – over the years, in our small family business the same way.
We never thought of calling any of our services Novichok. Too bad. We might’ve made a “killing” – in the marketplace, that is.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
