|
|
|
|||||||||||
 TheStreet.Com Six Ways To Beat Deflation By Darrell ZahorskySix Ways to Prepare Small Business for Deflation 1. Scenario Planning: Develop an action plan based on the scenario of deflation hitting your industry. Deflation may not cut across all sectors. Gas prices can increase while technology falls. Play out scenarios of falling price points in related industries and look at both threats and opportunities for your business. How will your company adapt? 2. Inventory Reductions: Operate your business on the Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory model. Order smaller amounts in shorter cycles to take advantage of dropping prices and optimizing profits. 3. Avoid Commodities: Either get out of products or services that are commodity based or drastically cut costs. Reposition your business as a niche marketer of high value goods. 4. Increase Productivity: Not all deflation is negative and wealth destroying. Deflation can benefit small business by making technology affordable. Deflation can be a great opportunity to purchase technologies hit with declining prices. Buy technology that can boost the productivity of your company. 5. Cut Costs: Review the bottom line. Deflation will hurt profits and wages. Take a microscope to the costs of operating your business and eliminate the "nice to have" goods and services. 6. Review Contracts: If you are signing a long-term contract, consider the impact of deflation. Holding a long-term contract during a period of dropping prices locks you into a high price point. On the contrary, negotiate longer contracts with clients if at all possible to hold your margins and profits. It's time for small business to cast a gaze toward deflation. Times may be tough, but opportunity can be just around the corner. Learn to accept the challenges of today and prepare for tomorrow.  MonopolyEconomic situation in which only a single seller or producer supplies a commodity or a service. For a monopoly to be effective, there must be no practical substitutes for the product or service sold, and no serious threat of the entry of a competitor into the market. This enables the seller to control the price. Historical Background Economic monopolies have existed throughout much of human history. In ancient and medieval times dire scarcity of resources was common and affected the lives of most human beings. As nation-states began to emerge in the late Renaissance era, monopoly proved to be a useful device for sovereigns, ever strapped for the cash necessary to sustain their armies, courts, and extravagant life-styles. Monopoly rights were awarded to court favorites for manufacture and trade in basic essentials such as salt and tobacco. In all such charters, the sovereign received an ample share of the profits. Most major European nations also granted monopoly powers to private trading companies to stimulate exploration and the discovery of new lands. The awarding of monopoly power by the sovereign to private companies and court favorites, however, led to many abuses. In England, Parliament finally passed a Statute of Monopolies (1624) that sharply curtailed the monarch's right to create private monopolies in domestic trade. This act did not apply to the monopoly powers granted to companies formed for exploration and colonization. A groundbreaking work in the field of New Biology. Author Dr. Bruce Lipton is a former medical school professor (University of Wisconsin) and research scientist (Stanford University School of Medicine).His experiments, examining in great detail the molecular mechanisms by which cells process information, have revealed that genes do not in fact control our behavior, instead, genes are turned on and off by influences outside the cell.These influences include our perceptions and beliefs. He shows that our beliefs, true or false, positive or negative, affect genetic activity and actually alter our genetic code. Dr. Lipton's profoundly hopeful work, being hailed as one of the major breakthroughs in the New Sciences, shows how we can retrain our consciousness to create healthy beliefs, and by doing so create a profoundly positive effect on our bodies and our lives. Accordingly, the purpose of science was "to dominate and control Nature." To accomplish that goal, scientists had to first acquire knowledge of what "controls" an organism’s structure and function (behavior). Concepts founded in the principles of Newtonian physics defined the experimental approach to this quest. These principles stipulate that the Universe is a "physical mechanism" comprised of parts (matter), there is no attention given to the invisible "energy." In this world view, all that matters is "matter." Consequently, modern science is preoccupied with materialism. The way to understand how a finely tuned mechanism works is to disassemble it and analyze all of the component "parts." This approach is called reductionism. Cellular biologists now recognize that the environment (external universe and internal-physiology), and more importantly, our perception of the environment, directly controls the activity of our genes. The quantum physics behind these mechanisms provide insight into the communication channels that link the mind-body duality. An awareness of how vibrational signatures and resonance impact molecular communication constitutes a master key that unlocks a mechanism by which our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs create the conditions of our body and the external world. This knowledge can be employed to actively redefine our physical and emotional well-being. Cells are comprised of four types of large (macro-) molecules: proteins/polysaccharides (sugars)/nucleic acids (gene stuff)/lipids (fats) A human is made of 100,000 different proteins. Proteins are linear "chains," whose molecular "links" are comprised of amino acid molecules. Each of the 20 different amino acids has a unique shape, so that when linked together in a chain, the resulting proteins fold into elaborate 3-dimensional "wire sculptures." The protein sculpture’s pattern is determined by the sequence of its amino acid links. The balancing of electromagnetic charges along the protein’s chain serves to control the "final" shape of the sculpture. The unique shape of a protein sculpture is referred to as its "conformation." In the manner of a lock and key, protein sculptures compliment the shape of environmental molecules (which include other proteins). When proteins interlock with the complementary environmental molecules, they assemble into complex structures (similar to the way cogged "gears" intermesh to make a watch). When proteins chemically couple with other molecules they change the distribution of electromagnetic charges in the protein. Changes in "charge" cause the protein to change its shape. Therefore, upon coupling with chemicals, a protein’s will shift its shape from one conformation to another conformation. A protein generates "motion" as it changes shape. A protein’s movement can be harnessed to do "work." Groups of interacting proteins that work together in carrying out a specific function are referred to as "pathways." The activities of specific protein pathways provide for digestion, excretion, respiration, reproduction, and all of the other physiologic "functions" employed by living organisms. Proteins provide for the organism’s structure and function, but random protein actions can not provide for "life." Science’s materialist-reductionist-determinist philosophy led to the Human Genome Project, the multibillion-dollar program to map all of the genes. Once this is accomplished, it is assumed that we can use that knowledge to repair or replace "defective" genes and in the process, realize Science’s mission of "controlling" the expression of an organism. Since 1953, biologists have assumed that DNA "controls" life. In multicellular animals, the organ that "controls" life is known as the brain. Since genes are presumed to control cellular life, and genes are contained in the cell’s nucleus, the nucleus would be expected to be the equivalent of the cell’s "brain." If the brain is removed from any organism, the immediate and necessary consequence of that action is— death of the organism. Removing the cell’s nucleus, referred to as enucleation, would be tantamount to removing the cell’s brain. Though enucleation should result in the immediate death of the cell, enucleated cells may continue to survive and exhibit a "regulated" control of their biological processes. In fact, cells can live for two or more months without a nucleus. Clearly, the assumption that genes "control" cell behavior is wrong! As is described by Nijhout (X), genes are "not self-emergent," that is genes can not turn themselves on or off. If genes can’t control their own expression, how can they control the behavior of the cell? Nijhout further emphasizes that genes are regulated by "environmental signals." Consequently, it is the environment that controls gene expression. Rather than endorsing the Primacy of DNA, we must acknowledge the Primacy of the Environment! Cells "read" their environment, assess the information and then select appropriate behavioral programs to maintain their survival. The fact that data is integrated, processed and used to make a calculated behavioral response emphasizes the existence of a "brain" equivalent in the cell. Where is cell’s brain? The answer is to be found in bacteria, the most primitive organisms on Earth. The many processes and functions of this unicellular life form are highly integrated, consequently, it must have a brain equivalent. Cytologically, these organisms do not contain any organelles (diminutive of "organs) such as nuclei, mitochondria, Golgi bodies, etc. The only organized structure in these primitive life forms is its "cell membrane," also known as its plasmalemma. The cell membrane, once thought to be like a permeable Saran Wrap that holds the cytoplasm together, actually provides for the bacterium’s digestive, respiratory, excretory and integumentary (skin) systems. It also serves as the cell’s "brain."Leading edge contemporary cell research has transcended conventional Newtonian physics and is now soundly based upon a universe created out of energy as defined by quantum physics. This new physics emphasizes energetics over materialism, substitutes holism for reductionism, and recognizes uncertainty in place of determinism. Consequently, we now recognize that receptors respond to energy signals as well as molecular signals. Access Materials In Complete |
 Sign Guestbook |
 View Guestbook |
    |
 |
|
. |
| Visitors: 00070 |