Fool Proof Business Model

I have finally come up with a fool proof business model that is going to make me millions of dollars and I will never have to work again! I am going to set up a company with at least 20 Vice Presidents and give them all huge salaries and perks and pension and bonus plans. Everywhere we need to go we will travel to by private jet. Then we are going to set up an unwieldy distribution network so that we have at least 2 retail outlets in every town and city (some of them on the same block and in direct competition with each other). The products my company is going to make will be of fair to middling quality and over priced, and run counter to the needs and desires of the public at large. Finally my company will not change with the times and we will continue to produce our products well after the shelf life and attractiveness of the items is past. What could possibly go wrong?

If you haven't figured it out from the sarcasm dripping out of the first paragraph, I'm really not serious about this business. Strangely enough though, hundreds of thousands of people seem to think that this kind of business needs to keep running and should get billions of dollars in taxpayer money to help it to do so. The car industry in this country (and in the U.S.) is in serious trouble. Two of the 'big three' auto makers are on the verge of ruin and the third, although doing o.k., is not the healthiest business on the planet. Why are these businesses doing so poorly? Could part of the reason be that two of them have the business model outlined above and one of these, has consistently produced vehicles that people don't really want. In an age of rising gas prices, and the need for fuel efficiency they released big cars with gas guzzling engines. Who really needs a V12 5.6L engine in their truck to drive to the grocery store?

I feel sorry for the people who have to loose their jobs because of the stupidity of their bosses, but I don't think these companies deserve to get government money to allow them to continue in the way that they are going. If it were any other industry, any other business, the house of cards would have fallen and the company would be gone. If the only book store in town, only stocks lawn care books and the town is located in the middle of the desert, how long is it going to last? Should they get a government handout? Nope. Why would this kind of mismanagement be rewarded?

We need to focus on things that are going to pay off in the future. The age of high performance muscle car is past. As much as I might like to own a 1969 Dodge Charger (or even one of the newer versions), I know that I could not afford to put gas in it. I also know that gas prices are not going to drop dramatically in the next 10 years, if anything they will continue to rise and this will make the use of such a vehicle more and more impractical. The money spent in trying to prop up these companies would be better spent on perfecting alternative fuel sources and developing more and more fuel efficient vehicles. Will the demise of these companies hurt? Absolutely. But we need to look to the future and spend money on what is to come – not what is already beyond repair.