Today I’m going to vote at City Hall in San Francisco, where I vote in most elections. It happens in the Registrar of Voters office. A strange sensation, like going to the spring for the water that gets sold as bottled water.
I mention this because an old friend wondered about my politics and read this blog going back quite away. She says I am very anti-Lefty but couldn't determine my politics. Good.
This blog is about commerce. I talk about commerce when it collides with politics and I talk about politics when it relates to my many years as a campaign manager and political operative.
Commerce has been strongly impacted by President Obama’s foreign policy of global military retreat, but the worst consequences are yet to become significant. I also comment when tech billionaires support the politics of unions and anti-commerce. Again, the consequences are a long way off.
The issue of an old friend also raises another interesting self observation. I went to a party for a friend whom I’ve known for over 50 years and there were several other friends of that duration at the party.
Two were friends I had had for over five years as a close buddy. In thinking about the fact that I have always had one or two very close male friends during my life, friends with whom I spent time every week, I thought about what ended those friendships.
It was that I grew uncomfortable with their dishonesty in business in each case. I hadn’t learned about this behavior earlier, because business dishonesty is not necessarily pathological, it can be contextual. No wonder I wrote a book about the Briarpatch businesses and called it Honest Business. It seems to have been important to me.