What it Means to Have Capital

October 12, 2020

Good morning! Happy Feast of Thanksgiving to our family and friends in Canada. The morning and evening hues are golden as the sun mixes almost magically with the buttery color of the remaining foliage. Looking for work?  The nanny gig is popular right now — and pays well. When this colourful season started a month or more ago I told myself the last thing I needed was one more photograph of pretty leaves…And so now 300+ snapshots later…

• Along with autumn it’s Alfred Nobel Prize Season.
  • In a tight race for the prestigious Peace Prize, co-nominees Putin and Trump were edged out by the World Food Programme of the United Nations.

Humans Are Flawed

• As humans we are all flawed, some more deeply than others.
  • When writing and telling (elementary) history there has been a tendency to minimize flaws while accentuating heroics.
  • Among many dilemmas associated with history (it is always the greatest lie — Hughes) is whom to quote, why, and when.
  • For example, has Tom Jeffereson lost all his credibility or only some of it — or none of it?
  • I’m going to go for just some of it as I offer this, just one of his many contributions to our society:
    • “Nothing can stop the (person) with the right mental attitude from achieving (their) goal; nothing on earth can help a (person) with the wrong mental attitude.”
      • One more thing on that subject:  The same exact quote could probably accurately be attributed to countless others.

• The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 (Roosevelt had decreed it by Executive Order one year earlier and Congress later went along) was (is) a federal loan program established to help make possible the delivery of electricity to more of the rural United States — and it has been cited as among the more successful federal government programs of all time.
  • Many of the rural cooperatives established as a result of the R.E.A. still exist while continuing to deliver electricity to otherwise unlikely locales.
    • The rural United States went from just 3% electrified to more than 90% in twenty-five years.
  • A reader (King) recently suggested the R.E.A. needs to be re-energized (no pun intended) with the goal of providing broadband (internet) to 100% of the country.
  • Great idea… and after a bit of research, I discovered the plan was already put in place a few years back, but it needs significantly more capital.
  • My opinion (and King’s):  Where to put more of our nation’s capital?  Infrastructure… or we will soon be very sorry while also looking rather foolish.

What it Means to Have Capital

• Here is something about which I’ve given lots of thought… not unique, I’m sure, but I don’t know whom to credit beyond YT.
  • REFLECTIONS ON CAPITAL
    • Capital makes possible the impossible.
    • Capital is the fuel for your engine – or, if you already have fuel, then it is the engine itself.
      • Along with the principles of supply and demand and a few other economic concepts, we are taught about financial capital in grade #3.  Rarely, if ever, are we taught about other forms of equally important and potentially powerful capital.
      • Consider, for example, if you had an increase in social capital or collaborative capital or cultural capital.  What if you possessed greater intellectual capital by adding a partner or a key employee — or through education?  What advantage would you gain by increasing your entrepreneurial capital?
      • How about relationship capital?  Have you ever thought to measure its value?  You’ve no doubt thought about leadership capital and its contribution to your organization – and finally, of course, financial capital itself – which might open doors to further leveraging the other kinds of capital.

• Go through this exercise:  What would happen if you purposefully pursued increasing and then leveraging each of these forms of capital?

This is rather humbling, but compare and contrast these two poems… one by a complete amateur (YT), the other by a world famous poet and writer: The Maple Tree

The maple tree that night

Without a wind or rain

Let go its leaves

Because its time had come.

Brown veined, spotted,

Like old hands, fluttering in blessings,

They fell upon my head

And shoulders, and then

Down to the quiet at my feet.

I stood, and stood

Until the tree was bare

And have told no one

But you that I was there.

Colours

Harmonic hues vibrant against an azure autumn sky.

Sweet smells waft on crisp, dry rivulets of summer’s waning breeze.

Each leaf a masterpiece,

each tree trillions of pixels.

Explosions of brilliance magnified by the soft and supple October sun.

Such beauty – wonder, comfort, peace, serenity.

Senses on high alert.

Melancholy abounds; gratitude surfaces.

The rustling swish and crunch of drying maples mixed with oaks and birch and ash

tug forth memories of life’s less troubling times.

Barren branches herald shorter days, cooler nights, grayness.

Fading, falling, carpeting, changing.

Make it last!

Hold on!
If you can discern the authors of each; i.e., the poets, I’d be pleased to get your reply.  (Answers next week)