Traveling in the South Atlantic
There has never been a better time to be alive.
Traveling in the South Atlantic.
June was a busy month for me. After 15 speaking engagements in May, several of them in the Gulf, and traveling all over the United States and Canada, June was very much the same.
After giving a full day seminar in Philadelphia, I took a taxi out to the airport to catch my plane to Birmingham via Atlanta. But there were violent storms in Atlanta and my plane had been cancelled. Fortunately, I was able to transfer onto a flight at 8:15 PM which was also delayed because of the same weather conditions.
The plane finally took off at 11:00pm [vs. the 7:15pm flight I was originally scheduled on] and arrived in Atlanta at 12:30am. Because there were no more flights, I rented a car from Hertz and drove the 2 1/2 Hours to Birmingham for my full day seminar on Wednesday. I arrived at 3:30am, slept four hours, spoke all day to a very nice group of people, and then hurried out to the airport to fly to Nashville.
The flight to Nashville was also delayed because of weather. But I finally arrived in Nashville, got a few hours sleep, spoke all day Thursday and then flew back to San Diego.
When you are younger, you can absorb a few short nights combined with long days. But when you travel and speak continuously, with a series of short nights, it catches up on you.
On June 23 [Sat], I flew to Christ Church in New Zealand to conduct a series of one-day seminars for Mike Doughty, a successful entrepreneur and seminar promoter who brings top speakers from all over the world to speak to his audiences of entrepreneurs, sales people and executives.
Because of the international dateline, when I left on Saturday, 14 hours later, I arrived on Monday, losing a full day. We conducted seminars in Christ Church, Auckland and Wellington on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
New Zealand is an interesting country in many ways. Not only is it quite beautiful, lush and green, with beautiful weather and excellent skiing on the South Island, but the people are a real pleasure as well. They are well educated, informed, warm, friendly, curious, interested and committed to success, just as we are here in the U.S.
The history of New Zealand is interesting. After World War II, it became a socialistic country. The government moved in and took over 60% of the economy. Interest rates and unemployment were extremely high. Large sectors of the population were on welfare and unemployment insurance. A major export of New Zealand, aside from sheep, was young people leaving for other countries to seek opportunities.
In 1980, the labor party came into power and made a startling concession. They realized that the economy was not working. New Zealand, which should have been a dynamic, prospering country, was a socialist, impoverished backwater in the South Atlantic.
The finance minister, Roger Douglas, set off in 1983 to travel around the world seeking a new national business model. He carefully studied the low tax, low regulation policies of Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher, and brought them back to New Zealand.
Over the next three years, they slashed the role of government to 30%. They cut taxes, freed up business, limited regulation and liberated the economy.
As a result, the New Zealand economy took off. Unemployment dropped and disappeared. Everybody went back to work. Investment poured in. Within another two years, New Zealand was the fastest growing industrialized country in the world, with the lowest level of corruption and the highest level of new business formation. It was a revolutionary turn-around!
Just as they called it “Reganomics” in the U.S., they called it “Rogernomics” in New Zealand. I had the great good fortune of spending three hours personally with Roger Douglas back in the 1990’s, learning about the incredible transition he had brought to his country by slashing taxes and regulation.
The lesson seems to be lost on U.S. lawmakers, especially those who control Congress and the Senate. Every industrialized country in the world today is slashing taxes, especially the taxes on businesses. The U.S. now has the highest business taxes of any country in the world. More and more U.S. companies are moving overseas to function under more favorable tax regimes.
The tax cuts of 2003 in the U.S. were directly responsible for the incredible growth of the U.S. economy since then. They had the same effects as the Regan tax cuts in 1983, which led to 17 years of growth and expansion, making the U.S. the biggest, most prosperous, most entrepreneurial and dynamic country in history.
Here is the real wrinkle. Businesses do not pay taxes. They merely collect taxes for the government and pass them on. All business taxes are ultimately paid in three ways. The company raises its prices, if it can. If it cannot, it reduces its economic activities to only its most profitable products and services. And the third way that companies pays taxes is by lowering the amount of wages and other compensation for their employees. They have no choice.
We are living today at the most prosperous time in all of human history, especially in the industrialized nations, and most importantly, in the United States. But because of the incessant negative publicity in the newspapers, radio and television, all aimed at influencing the 2008 elections, fully 60% of Americans are convinced that the U.S. is currently in a recession. It is amazing how powerful propaganda can be.
There has never been a better time to be alive. There are more opportunities and possibilities for you today than have ever existed before. And if anything, the future will be even better. It is up to you to take full advantage of all these opportunities and possibilities, and achieve your full potential, both personally and financially.
659,647 Readers
Connect to Brian on LinkedIn
Be Brian's Friend on Facebook
Follow Brian on Twitter
comment