takin' care of business

The business of business is business, I thought someone once said (I thought it was a previous CEO of General Electric, but I could only find Calvin Coolidge and the quote is not as I thought I recalled, so that must have been what I was thinking of. Sensible in one sense, very restrictive in another, as it could be construed to mean that boards are only interested in the most efficient use of assets, in the belief that everything will flow from that. And there's plenty of theory to support that particular view of world, not to mention laws about fiduciary duty.

Here, in the Times, Graham Searjeant laments a restrictive view in the light of the rise of private equity, its short time horizons and the complex web of investment and financing vehicles that have been developed to facilitate the business of business since banking was generally deregulated over the last 20 years. He argues that the increasing complexity of the financial arranegments has the effect of distancing the owners of capital from the actual goods and services being financed, with deleterious effect.

The article summarises another dilemma that chateau vvb wrestles with - a cursory understanding that business produces the goods and services that are desirable outcomes to fuel our lifestyles, and to prosper it should be allowed to get on with, yes you guessed it, business...but that the recent evolution of the capitalist model is not sustainable over any reasonable period as one of the 'assets' being worked so hard, the human input, should not be treated the same as land, capital or other raw material inputs.

Wrestle wrestle.

Oh and btw, see Paris Hilton in the right hand panel? A digitally enhanced image? What do they mean, do you think?

much, much later...so much later it's in fact a different day...

Had a little splurge in JB HiFI and we came away with:

the Drive By Truckers...recommended to me by anonymous Chris. Good driving music which reminds me, the car needs a service...

This recent release. As I never had the original on vinyl as some of my compadres still do, I'd been hanging for a CD issue. Have just watched the DVD...really good. Some of the clips plus the making of the making of the making of. All five - Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Geoff Lynne, Roy Orbison - seem to get along just fine. Orbison has a bit of a whinge that he was the best but couldn't get his ideas incorporated, someone else in voiceover makes the comment that Orbison's voice was so strong that it was hard to mix him back in with the others, Geoff Lynne seems smug (it's the fucking sunglasses, I've always thought he was smug, we'll have to ask anonymous Chris what the real story was...), Tom Petty of whom I am, strangely, a big fan, seems a bit humbled, and Harrison is sublime and human.

Which is why I also bought this.

Lots of good times coming up so who cares about the finely tuned Formula One economy? This one, I mean.