Kona Kohala Blog

The Kailua Kona Target store is on schedule to open its doors in a few months bringing a long awaited shopping opportunity to West Hawaii.  There is some mystique to Target not shared by KMart or Walmart or anyother mart out there.  Whether it's the clever chiq ads or the layout of the stores, there's something that's allowing Target to continue to expand even during these hard times; here's a business that's doing something right.

Perhaps Mr. Obama would do well to heed Targets example of how to run a company.  He could pretty much leave the business plan alone and use it to run the country.

Right now we are kicking off the lates farsical adventure of this administration named the Home Affordability and Stability Plan or HASP.  When the idea of saving homes from foreclosure first came up most people thought it was a good idea.  When the details were released last week, many of those same people thought it was a bad idea, a very bad idea.

While it's a generous thought to help out people who somehow got themselves in trouble buying their home, the people next door who have been working their little fannies off to make their mortgage payment are now realizing it's them who will be bailing these people out.  People are questioning the propriety of paying off or reducing someone else's mortgage when they get no relief for having done the right thing.

I actually had some moron say to me that he was so glad the government could help these people out without having to use tax money.  Huh!!!  There really are people out there who think no one is paying for this, that money is just somehow materializing out of thin air.  I'm beginning to get the idea that Obama is one of them.  It's nice that he and his honey take home $4,000,000 plus a year with no loss of employment in his future but that's not the case for many Americans.

Now, add to that 9,000 + pork (I know it's been changed to the ever so much nicer sounding "earmark" terminology) projects and things are looking dim.  I've heard it said many times recently but no one seems to be listening, "We can't buy our way out of a recession".

Two books I recommend our president and his staff read are first Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and then Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".  If every American would read and understand just those two books we would be out of trouble in a hurry.  One is fiction but carries powerful lessons about how business works.  The other is non-fiction and tells a story so parallel to our own that we must change our ways now or fall victim to the very same end of the only other Super Power that has ever existed on earth.  aloha